THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


THE  HEBREW  SCRIPTURES 
IN  THE  MAKING 


HEBREW  SCRIPTURES 


IN    11 E  MAKING 


BY 

MAX  L.  MARGOLIS 


PHILADELPHIA 

THE   JEWISH    PUBLICATION   SOCIETY    OF   AMERICA 
1922 


Copyright,  1922,  by 
THE  JEWISH  PUBLICATION  SOCIETY  OF  AMERICA 


1/35 


TO   THE    MEMORY  OF 

ISRAEL  FRIEDLAENDER 

SCHOLAR  TEACHER  MARTYR 


5000935 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGB 

CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE 9 

I.    THE  PROBLEM 11 

II.    THE  TRADITIONAL  VIEW 20 

III.  THE  UNTRADITIONAL  VIEW 36 

IV.  Torah,  WORD,  AND  WISDOM 54 

V.    THE  THREE  SHELVES 70 

VI.    THREE,  NOT  FOUR 83 

VII.    THE  HIGHER  UNITY  OF  THE  TORAH 97 

VIII.    THE  HOLY  SPIRIT 121 

INDEX, ,  .  127 


CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE 
The  Pre-Mosaic  Period 


B.C.E. 

2200 
Abraham. 

Hammurapi, 

king  of  Babylon. 

1440    Moses. 

The  Mosaic  Period 

Joshua. 

The  Period  of  the  Conquest 

The  Philistine  Invasion 
1060    Eli  at  Shiloh. 
1040    Samuel. 

Destruction  of  Shiloh. 

The  Rise  of  the  Monarchy 

1 020    Saul. 

looo    David.  Jerusalem  taken  from  the  Jebusite.   Plans  laid  for 

Centralization. 
960     Solomon.  The  Temple  built.   Zadok. 

The  Period  of  the  Divided  Kingdom 

930  Jeroboam  I  secedes.   Decentralization. 

873  Ahab  in  Israel  and  Jehoshaphat  in  Judah.   Elijah. 
837  Joash. 

798  Amaziah. 

784  Jeroboam  II.  790  Uzziah  Amos.   Hosea. 

734  Ahaz. 

712  Fall  of  Samaria. 


719    Hezekiah. 
691     Manasseh. 
637    Amon. 

The  Kingdom  of  Judah 

Isaiah.      Micah. 

636    Josiah.   Hilkiah.  Jeremiah. 

621     The  Book  found  in  the  Temple. 

596    Jehoiachin.   First  Deportation.   Ezekiel. 


CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE 


B.C.E. 

596     Zedekiah. 

586    Fall  of  Jerusalem. 


The  Babylonian  Exile 
561     Jehoiachin  released  from  prison. 

538    Edict  of  Cyrus.   Jeshua  and  Zerubbabel.  The  Great  Un- 
known Prophet. 

The  Persian  Period 

515     The  Temple  completed.       Haggai.   Zechariah.    Malachi. 
445     Nehemiah.   Ezra.  Sanba Hat  in  Samaria. 

444    The  Torah  read  by  Ezra.     The  'Scribes'. 
431     Nehemiah's  second  visit  to  Jerusalem. 

The  Samaritans  secede. 

The  Grecian  Period 

331  Alexander  the  Great.  Jaddua. 

320  Beginning  of  the  Dominion  of  the  Ptolemies. 

3 1 2  Beginning  of  the  Era  of  the  Seleucidae. 

300  Simon  I,  high  priest. 

200  Simon  II,  high  priest. 

197  The  Syrian  Dominion  begins. 

175  Antiochus  Epiphanes.  Onias  deposed.  Jason.   Menelaus. 

1 68  The  Syrian  Persecution.   The  Maccabean  Uprising. 

The  Maccabean  Period 

165    Judah  the  Maccabee.    The  Temple  redcdicated. 
142     Simon  high  priest  and  prince. 
103     Alexander  Jannai.    Rise  of  the  Pharisees. 
63     Pompey  takes  Jerusalem. 

The  Roman  Period 
37     Herod  the  Great. 

C.E.  Hillel  and  Shammai. 

14  Tiberius  emperor. 

Gamaliel  I. 
70     Destruction  of  Jerusalem.    The  Temple  burnt  down. 

Josephus. 

90  Eleazar  son  of  Azariah. 

1 1 7  Hadrian  emperor. 

132     The  Revolt  of  Bar-Kokeba.    Akiba. 
190    The  Mishna  of  R.  Judah  the  Prince. 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  PROBLEM 

The  Hebrew  Scriptures  are  divided  into 
The  Three  ..  «  "  «. 

_  three  parts.     Each,  as  may  be  seen  in 

any  Hebrew  edition  or  translation  based 
on  the  Hebrew,  such  as  the  New  Translation  pub- 
lished by  the  Jewish  Publication  Society  of  America 
(1917),  is  preceded  by  a  separate  title-page: 

Torah  miD  —  the  Law  (or  Pentateuch,  Five  Books 
of  Moses) ; 

Nebiim  D'N'33' — the  Prophets  (in  front  of  Joshua) ; 

Ketubim  D^31J"D  —  the  Writings  (in  front  of 
Psalms)  .  The  whole  is  then  spoken  of  as  Torah,  Ne- 
biim, Ketubim  (  "l"3D  by  abbreviation). 

_  The  five  books  of  the  Torah  are  Gen- 

esis, Exodus,  Leviticus,  Numbers,  Deu- 
teronomy. The  framework  of  history,  within  which 
the  Torah  proper  or  Law  is  enclosed,  narrates  the  life 
of  Moses,and  the  fortunes  of  the  people  he  guided.from 
his  call  to  his  death ;  it  is  preceded  by  an  introduction 
largely  contained  in  the  first  book  and  dealing  with 
the  beginnings  of  mankind  and  of  the  nation  through 
the  patriarchal  period.  Leviticus  is  wholly  given  to 
legal  matters ;  and  so  is  a  great  part  of  Deuteronomy ; 
laws  are  found  also  in  Exodus  and  Numbers ;  they  are 
not  altogether  wanting  in  Genesis. 


12  THE  SCRIPTURES  IN  THE  MAKING 

_  The  Prophets  are  sub-divided  into  two 

parts :  Former  Prophets  and  Latter  Proph- 
Prophets  ~,     c  ,    ,,       ,      , 

ets.    1  he  first  part,  composed  ot  tour  books 

—  Joshua,  Judges,  Samuel,  Kings  —  contains  the  history 
of  the  people  from  the  conquest  under  Joshua,  through 
the  heroic  age  of  the  Judges  with  its  incipient  attempts 
at  unification  of  the  tribes,  to  the  founding  of  the 
monarchy  under  Saul  and  David  narrated  circumstan- 
tially in  Samuel,  and  its  progress  under  Solomon,  then 
during  the  period  of  the  divided  kingdom  to  the  de- 
struction of  Samaria(722  before  the  common  era),  and 
lastly  during  the  continued  existence  of  the  kingdom 
of  Judah  to  the  fall  of  Jerusalem  (586  B.  c.  E.)  or  rather 
to  the  release  of  Jehoiachin  from  prison  (562  B.  c.  E.), 
all  of  which  forms  the  contents  of  the  Book  of  Kings. 
First  and  Second  Samuel  are  counted  as  one  book ;  so 
also  First  and  Second  Kings. 

The  second  part  consists  of  three 
Latter  Prophets    ,  ,    ..    .         ,  .  , 

larger    prophetical    works,    mainly 

embodying  addresses,  but,  as  in  the  case  of  Jeremiah 
particularly,  also  biographical  matter  concerning  the 
prophets;  and  one  book  which  is  a  collection  of  twelve 
small  prophetic  writings  (hence  the  name  Minor 
Prophets,  i.  e.  minor  in  size).  The  three  larger  books 
are  Isaiah,  Jeremiah,  Ezekiel;  the  twelve  smaller  con- 
stituting the  fourth:  Hosea,  Joel,  Amos,  Obadiah, 
Jonah,  Micah,  Nahum,  Habakkuk,  Zephaniah,  Hag- 
gai,  Zechariah,  Malachi. 


THE  PROBLEM  13 


j_  .  .  The  third  section  or  Ketubim  (the  Writ- 
ings)consists  of  the  Book  of  Psalms,  Proverbs, 
Job  (these  three  are  marked  off  in  the  Hebrew  by  a 
peculiar  system  of  musical  notation  known  as  the 
poetic  accentuation) ;  the  five  Scrolls  (Megillot)  in  the 
order  in  which  they  are  read  in  the  synagogue:  Song 
of  Songs  (Passover), Ruth  (Festival  of  Weeks),  Lamen- 
tations (Fast  of  Ab),  Ecclesiastes  (Festival  of  Taber- 
nacles), Esther  (Purim) ;  then  follow  Daniel  (the  re- 
puted writings  of  a  visionary  in  the  times  of  Nebuchad- 
nezzar and  Belshazzar),  Ezra-Nehemiah  (counted  as 
one  book,  giving  the  history  of  the  restoration  of  the 
Jewish  community  in  the  Persian  period),  and  lastly 
First  and  Second  Chronicles  (also  counted  as  one  book; 
an  historical  work  extending  from  Adam  to  the  res- 
toration under  Cyrus,  538  B.  c.  E.). 

-,,      ~  The  order  of  the  books  within  each 

The  Order  of    ....  .  .         f    . 

,.     T,     ,  division  as  given  above  is  that  01  the 

the  Books  ,.          .....          -   ,     TT  , 

earliest  printed  editions  of  the  Hebrew 

text  (Soncino,  1488;  Naples,  1491-93;  Brescia,  1492- 
94).  This  order  has  been  followed  in  all  subsequent 
editions.  In  the  manuscript  copies  which  antecede 
the  age  of  printing,  the  order  of  the  books  of  the  Torah 
and  of  the  former  Prophets  is  universally  the  same  as 
in  the  printed  editions.  On  the  other  hand,  in  the 
books  of  the  Latter  Prophets  and  of  the  Writings 
there  are  notable  variations  of  order.  These  differences 
seem  to  be  due  to  the  fact  that  anciently  the  Eastern 
(or  Babylonian)  Jews  arranged  these  books  in  one  man- 


14  THE  SCRIPTURES  IN  THE  MAKING 

ner,while  the  Western  (or  Palestinian)  Jews  adopted  an- 
other sequence.  So  far  as  we  are  able  to  ascertain  our 
printed  editions  follow  the  Eastern  (Babylonian) 
order.  In  an  ancient  source  cited  in  the  Talmud  (Baba 
Batra  14b)  the  books  which  follow  the  Book  of  Kings 
are  arranged  in  this  order : 

Jeremiah,  Ezekiel,  Isaiah,  the  Twelve; 

Ruth,  Psalms,  Job,  Proverbs,  Ecclesiastes,  Song  of 
Songs,  Lamentations,  Daniel,  Esther,  Ezra- 
Nehemiah,  Chronicles. 

Observe  how  in  the  talmudic  order  the  three  writ- 
ings ascribed  to  Solomon — Proverbs,  Ecclesiastes,  Song 
of  Songs — are  joined  together  instead  of  being  separat- 
ed as  in  our  editions.  While  there  are  other  minor 
variations  of  order  in  the  manuscripts,  there  is  a 
prominent  characteristic  in  all  of  them  which  merits 
attention.  In  none  of  them  is  a  book  shifted  from  one 
of  the  three  divisions  into  another.  The  fact  would 
seem  to  be  established  that  the  division  into  three 
parts  is  ancient  and  universal. 

If  we  turn  to  the  Church  translations  of  the  Hebrew 
Scriptures,  the  Anglican  for  example,  the  threefold 

._     A  division  would  seem  at  the  first 

The  System  of          ,  , 

mi.      f  u  TN-  •  •      glance   nowhere  to  be   apparent. 
Threefold  Division  *          ,    ,      ,     ,    .  ^u  .  . .         , 
.    _,_,      _,  The  whole  of  what  Christians  de- 

in  the  Church  .  ,    ™  in- 

nominate the  Old  Testament  is  one 

undivided  part.  Moreover  Ruth  occupies  a  place 
between  Judges  and  Samuel,  Lamentations  follows 
Jeremiah,  and  Daniel  comes  after  Ezekiel ;  Chronicles, 


THE  PROBLEM  15 


Ezra-Nehemiah,  and  Esther  are  attached  to  the  Book 
of  Kings;  the  Latter  Prophets  of  the  Hebrew  ed- 
itions are  found  at  the  end  of  the  collection,  and  the 
remaining  books  of  the  third  section  are  placed  in  the 
middle.  Nevertheless,  on  closer  inspection,  there  is 
revealed  a  principle  of  threefold  division.  The  parts 
are: 

Historical  Books  (Genesis- Esther) ; 

Poetical  Books  (Job,  Psalms,  and  the  Solomonic 
Writings) ; 

Prophetical  Books. 

This  arrangement  meets  us  in  the  oldest  manu- 
scripts of  the  Greek  Translation.  It  is  worth  noting 
that  the  placing  of  the  Prophets  third  in  order  has  a 
parallel  in  the  Additional  Prayer  on  New  Year's  Day 
where  the  ten  scriptural  citations  are  made  up  of  three 
each  from  Torah,  Ketubim,  and  Prophets,  with  the 
tenth  once  more  from  the  Torah. 

T.  The  division  of  the  Scriptures 

It  was  known  in 

At-    c*         j  /-«  mto  three  sections  was  known  in 

the  Second  Century   -  ,  _,, 

B>  c  E  the  second  century  B.  c.  E.    The 

Greek  translator  of  the  Book  of 
Sirach  (chapter  VI)speaks,  in  the  preface,  of  the  great 
and  many  things  that  were  delivered  to  Israel  'by  the 
law  and  the  prophets  and  the  others  that  followed 
upon  them* ;  of  his  grandfather.the  author  of  the  book, 
as  a  student  of  'the  law,  and  the  prophets,  and  the 
other  books  of  our  fathers';  then  again,  speaking  of 
the  translated  Scriptures,  he  refers  to  them  as  'the 


16  THE  SCRIPTURES  IN  THE  MAKING 

law,  and  the  prophets,  and  the  rest  of  the  books'.  The 
nondescript  terms  by  which  the  third  division  is  alluded 
to  correspond  to  the  name  'Writings'  (Ketubim)  by 
which  it  is  designated  in  the  Mishna. 

The  tripartite  division  so  general- 
The  collection      .  ,   *,  ,     .  .    ,  ,  *    . 

ly  vouched  for  is  remarkable  if  it  be 
anciently  one  ,    ,       ,        , 

.      remembered  that  for  a  long  time  the 
in  thought  only       ...  .          .       ,     ° 

collection   existed  m   thought  only. 

The  five  books  of  the  Torah  had  always  formed  a  unit 
or  a  single  scroll,  with  a  blank  space  of  four  lines  be- 
tween contiguous  books;  in  public  reading  only  such 
a  scroll  might  be  used,  although  for  the  purpose  of  fol- 
lowing the  reader  or  for  private  study  single  volumes 
for  each  book  ('one  fifth',  homesh  or  hummasJi)  were 
permitted.  In  an  ancient  source  in  the  Talmud  (Baba 
Batra  13b)  the  teachers  are  divided  in  their  opinion 
as  to  whether  the  three  parts  of  the  Scriptures  may  be 

joined   together.     According   to 
The  Rabbis  slow        '    , ,.  .,  °   ....  .,.    (. 

Rabbi  Meir  (130-160  of  the  corn- 
to  permit  the  ,  .   . ,   .      .  ,  ,  . 
_      .  .     ..         ,            mon  era)  it  is  lawful  to  combine 
Combination  of            ,        ,    .      r    ,      c    . 

.  „     ,  the  whole  of  the  Scriptures  in 

Scriptural  Books  .  ,. 

„.         TT  ,  one  volume;  his  contemporary 

in  a  Single  Volume     „       _    ,  , 

R.      Judah       demands       three 

volumes,  one  for  each  of  the  three  parts;  the 
other  scholars  go  still  farther  and  require  a 
single  volume  for  each  separate  book  of  the 
Prophets  or  of  the  Writings.  Rabbi  Judah  adduces  in 
support  of  his  opinion  a  precedent  when  a  certain 
Boethus,  by  the  authority  of  Eleazar  ben  Azariah  (90- 


THE  PROBLEM  17 


1 30) ,  had  the  eight  books  of  the  prophets  in  one  volume ; 
but  Rabbi  Meir  cites  another  precedent  for  bringing 
together  all  the  Scriptures  in  one  scroll,  with  proper 
blanks  between  the  single  books.  The  latter  opinion 
prevails.  It  is  presupposed  in  the  Mishna,  which  rules 
that  a  volume  of  Scriptures  in  the  possession  of  part- 
ners may  not  be  divided  upon  the  dissolution  of  part- 
nership, and  is  laid  down  as  law  in  the  later  Codes. 
Nevertheless,  Maimonides,  according  to  the  testimony 
of  his  son  Abraham,  deprecated  the  union  of  all  of  the 
Scriptures  in  a  single  codex  (i.  e.  in  book  form,  consist- 
ing of  leaves) .  The  point  is  that  in  turning  the  leaves 
of  the  second  or  the  third  part,  they  would  come  to 
rest  upon  the  first,  which  would  constitute  a  degra- 
dation. According  to  the  rabbis,  it  is  permissible  to  lay 
one  scroll  of  the  Torah  on  the  top  of  another,  or  a 
single  book  of  the  Torah  upon  another,  or  either  upon 
the  Prophets,  but  not  the  reverse;  one  may  not  wind 
the  Prophets  in  a  wrapper  belonging  to  the  Scroll  of 
the  Torah.  The  Torah  clearly  possesses  a  higher 
degree  of  holiness  than  the  other  two  parts  of  the 
Scriptures.  The  Mishna  permits  the  community  to 
sell  its  market-place, where  the  people  hold  worship  on 
fast-days,  in  order  to  buy  a  synagogue;  similarly  a 
synagogue  may  be  exchanged  for  an  ark,  an  ark  for 
wrappers,  wrappers  for  the  two  latter  divisions  of  the 
Scriptures,  and  the  Scriptures  for  the  Torah;  the  re- 
verse process  is  forbidden  (Megillah  4.  1). 


18  THE  SCRIPTURES  IN  THE  MAKING 

-P..-        ,  -.  All  of  which  is  evidence  that  the 

Different  Degrees  _      ,  . 

,  0       ...  Torah  was  not  only  regarded  as 

of  Sanctity  ,      .,       .   ' 

endowed  with  a  higher  degree  of 

sanctity  than  the  Prophets  and  Writings,  but  also 
physically  kept  apart;  and  that  in  earliest  times  the 
books  of  the  Prophets  and  Writings  circulated  each  in 
a  single  volume,  though  some  of  them  might  be  united. 
We  saw  how  the  twelve  Minor  Prophets  count  as  one 
book  among  the  eight  Prophets;  their  union  was  due 

„.  solely  to  the  small  size  of  the 
Sirach  witnesses  to  .  ,  , 

XL  TT  •  r  XL  constituent  books ;  and  we  know 
the  Union  of  the  '  ,  ,  r 

._,.        _,      .  that    the   union   had  been  ef- 

Minor  Prophets  r        ,  .      ,       .  r  c. 

~  fected  in  the  times  of  Sirach 

in  one  Book.  ,.,__       ,         .  . 

(175  before  the  common  era). 

In  his  Hymn  of  the  Fathers  (chapters  44-49)  he  praises 
the  heroes  of  the  nation  in  chronological  order;  he 
mentions  the  prophets  by  name,  each  one  in  his  age; 
but  'the  twelve  prophets'  are  grouped  together  in  this 
appellation  namelessly.  It  is  clear  therefore  that  the 
twelve  little  books  formed  one  volume  designated  by 
a  collective  title. 

The  writer  of  Daniel  cites  an  utterance 

'The  Books      r  T         .  ,        ,       ,  .    <  .     D     ,   ,  /n 

of  Jeremiah  as  found  in  the  Books    (9. 

2).  'The  Books',  in  Greek  biblia  (plural  of  biblion,  a 
book),  is  at  the  basis  of  the  English  word  'Bible'.  The 
term  accordingly  meant  originally  not  a  single  book, 
but  a  collection,  not  necessarily  united  in  one  volume. 
Naturally  Daniel's  'Bible'  was  of  smaller  compass  than 
ours;  it  certainly  lacked  his  own  book.  The  collection 


THE  PROBLEM  19 


of  Scriptures  was  still  'in  the  making*.    The  process 
was  not  yet  consummated;  it  had,  of  course,  begun. 

_.     _,  What  was  this  process?  To  this 

The  Process  of  .        ,  ,.  .       , 

0    .  ,        .,  ,  .        question  there  is  a  traditional  and 
Scripture  Making  ...       , 

an  untraditional  answer. 


CHAPTER  II 
THE  TRADITIONAL  VIEW 

The  traditional  answer  is  contained  in  a  statement 
which  the  Talmud  cites  from  a  source  older  than  itself 
(Baba  Batra  14b,  15a).  'Moses  wrote  his  own  book  and 
the  section  concerning  Balaam  (Numbers  22.2-25.9) 
and  Job.  Joshua  wrote  his  own  book  and  (the  last) 
eight  verses  of  the  Torah.  Samuel  wrote  his  own  book 
and  Judges  and  Ruth.  David  wrote  the  Book  of  Psalms, 
incorporating  the  productions  of  ten  elders:  Adam 
(139),  Melchizedek  (110),  Abraham  (89),  Moses  (90), 
Heman  (88),  Jeduthun  (39,  62,  77),  Asaph  (50,  73-83), 
and  the  three  sons  of  Korah  (42,  44-49,  84,  85,  87). 
Jeremiah  wrote  his  own  book  and  the  Book  of  Kings 
and  Lamentations.  Hezekiah  and  his  company  wrote 
Isaiah,  Proverbs,  the  Song  of  Songs,  and  Koheleth. 
The  Men  of  the  Great  Synagogue  wrote  Ezekiel,  the 
Twelve,  Daniel,  and  Esther.  Ezra  wrote  his  own  book 
and  the  genealogies  of  the  Book  of  Chronicles,  includ- 
ing his  own'. 

To  understand  aright  the  purport  of  this  account 

it  must  at  once  be  conceded  that  the 
The  Meaning  ,          ,  .,  .      , 

,  ,        ,  ,  term     wrote     cannot   possibly    have 

of  'wrote'  . 

been   used   with   the  same  meaning 

throughout.  Certainly  in  the  case  of  Hezekiah  and  his 
company,  who  'wrote'  Proverbs,  and  of  the  Men  of  the 


THE  TRADITIONAL  VIEW 21 

Great  Synagogue,  who  'wrote'  the  Twelve,  the  intend- 
ed meaning  is  that  the  books  mentioned  were  completed 
and  edited  by  these  two  bodies.  The  title  to  chapters  25 
and  following  in  the  Book  of  Proverbs  reads:  'These 
also  are  proverbs  of  Solomon,  which  the  men  of  Hez- 
ekiah  king  of  Judah  copied  out.'  The  collection  of 
Solomonic  proverbs  was  accordingly  'completed'  in  the 
days  of  Hezekiah,  and  the  book  then  received  its  final 
form.  So  it  is  with  the  Twelve.  The  three  concluding 
writings  are  those  of  Haggai,  Zechariah,  and  Malachi, 
who  are  reckoned  among  the  men  of  the  Great  Syna- 
gogue. The  volume  naturally  became  complete  only 
with  their  inclusion.  On  the  other  hand,  we  have  no 
right  to  carry  this  meaning  into  all  the  other  instances. 
Certainly  with  reference  to  all  those  who  wrote  their 
own  books,  the  meaning  can  be  only  that  they  actually 
'wrote'  them,  that  is,  were  the  authors  of  them. 

If  Hezekiah,  according  to  Proverbs  25.1,  was  in- 
strumental in  giving  final  form  to  one  Solomonic  writ- 
ing, the  further  step  was  taken  to  include  in  the  activ- 
ity of  this  king  and  his  company  also  the  other  two 
writings  which  are  ascribed  to  Solomon.  Isaiah  was 
naturally  counted  among  'the  men  of  Hezekiah';  he 

_.  ~  £  wrote  his  own  book.  Similarly  it  goes 
The  Company  of  .  ,  —  .  .  ,-, 

,,      .  .  .  with  Daniel  and  Esther  enumerated 

Hezekiah  .          ,     ..       , 

.,  , .     ~  among  the  writings  written   by  the 

and  the  Great  &.    .      „         c               y   , 

„  men  of  the  Great  Synagogue;  for 

Daniel  and  Mordecai  were  of  them. 
But  peculiarly  enough,  Ezra  is  singled  out  from  the 


22  THE  SCRIPTURES  IN  THE  MAKING 

body  to  which  he  belonged.  It  is  also  by  no  means 
obvious  why  the  book  of  Ezekiel  is  included  in  the  list 
of  writings  issued  by  the  Great  Synagogue.  Much  has 
been  written  on  this  body,  and  its  very  existence  has 
been  called  into  question.  Here  may  we  fitly  deal  only 
with  the  understanding  of  itintheMishnaand  Talmud. 
The  teachers  apparently  mean  by  it  the  successive 
spiritual  leaders  of  the  restored  Jewish  community  in 
the  Persian  period.  Simon  the  Just  is  spoken  of  as 
among  the  last  af  that  body.  It  is  a  mooted  question 
whether  Simon  I,  a  grandson  of  Alexander's  contem- 
porary Jaddua,  is  meant,  or  Simon  II,  whose  son  Onias 
was  deposed  by  Antiochus  Epiphanes,  just  before  the 
Maccabean  uprising.  But  whether  the  one  or  the 
other,  it  is  clear  that  the  activity  of  that  body  of  di- 
rectors of  the  inner  life  of  the  community  extended 
throughout  the  entire  Persian  period  and  beyond  it 
into  the  times  of  Greek  dominion.  It  is  evidently  the 
intent  of  the  account  to  mark  the  time  of  Ezra  as  the 
period  in  which  the  collection  of  Holy  Scriptures  was 
completed. 

The  salient  point  in  the  traditional  account  is  that 
the  process  of  Scripture  making  is  described  as  one  of 

_,     _.  consecutive  addition.  On  the  whole 

The  Process  one  .       ,      .  . 

,  ~  ,.  a  rational  spirit  pervades  the  state- 

of  Consecutive  ~,    •,       *\  , 

......  ment.    The  last  eight  verses  of  the 

Addition  „,      ,  .  ,      ,      ,  , . 

Torah,  narrating  the  death  of  Mo- 
ses, are  ascribed  to  Joshua.  Contrast  the  view  of  later 
teachers  who  contend  that  Moses  wrote  at  dictation 


THE  TRADITIONAL  VIEW 23 

the  account  of  his  own  death  and  burial.  Neverthe- 
less we  are  dealing  with  a  construction  built  on 
specific  data,  supplied  by  the  Scriptures  themselves, 
which  are  generalized.  Since  certain  psalms  in  the 
Psalter  are  assigned  in  their  headings  to  David,  the 
whole  of  the  Psalter,  including  anonymous  produc- 
tions, is  practically  attributed  to  David.  The  accepted 
titles  of  the  books,  like  Joshua,  Samuel,  are  taken  to 
mean  writings  by  these  men  instead  of,  as  might  be 
maintained,  writings  concerning  them.  Naturally 
summary  titles,  like  Judges  and  Kings,  could  not  be 
taken  to  designate  authorship;  since  Samuel  connects 
with  Judges  and  Ruth  deals  with  an  event  'in  the  days 
when  the  Judges  judged',  the  three  are  ascribed  to  one 
author;  because  the  last  chapter  of  Kings  is  re- 
peated at  the  end  of  Jeremiah,  the  prophet  becomes 
plausibly  the  author  of  both.  II  Chronicles  35.25 
suggested  that  he  also  wrote  Lamentations.  Because 
the  scene  of  Job's  life  is  set  in  patriarchal  surroundings 
similar  to  those  in  Genesis,  the  book  is  ascribed  to 
Moses,  and  in  the  Syriac  translation  of  the  Scriptures 
it  is  put  immediately  after  Deuteronomy.  But  in 
placing  the  completion  of  the  Scriptures  in  the  time 
of  Ezra  and  his  associates  of  the  Great  Synagogue  there 
is  an  implied  conviction,  explicity  expressed  elsewhere 
(Sotah  48b) ,  that  with  the  death  of  the  last  prophets, 
Haggai,  Zechariah,  and  Malachi,  the  Holy  Spirit  was 
withdrawn  from  Israel.  Hence  the  Scriptures,  as  a 
body  of  inspired  writings,  are  conterminous  with  the 


24  THE  SCRIPTURES  IN  THE  MAKING 

long  period  setting  in  with  the  first  and  concluding 
with  the  last  prophet. 

_      ,.    ,  Incidentally   there   results  a  defi- 

The  Imphed  .  .         ,.    .    '      ,     c    .  „, 

TV  ^   •i.        f        nition  of  the  Holy  Scriptures.    We 
Definition  of  .  ,    ..     ,      .      . 

_    .  .  meet  with  it  also  in  the  writings  01 

Scriptures  ,     ,  .       .       T        ,         TM,     c    • 

...   .  the  historian  Josephus.    The  Scrip- 

met  with  in  ,  . J      ' r         .       . 

tures  are  to  him  the  works  of  an  un- 
broken line  of  prophets,  beginning 
with  Moses  and  ending  in  the  reign  of  Artaxerxes 
(the  biblical  Ahasuerus).  By  the  grace  of  divine 
inspiration,  these  men  obtained  a  knowledge  of  the 
most  ancient  events,  just  as  they  set  forth  clearly 
those  of  their  own  time  exactly  as  they  occurred.  'We 
possess  not  (as  do  the  Greeks)  a  vast  number  of  books 
disagreeing  and  conflicting  with  one  another.  We 
have  but  two  and  twenty,  containing  the  history  of 
all  time;  books  that  are  justly  deemed  trustworthy'. 
Josephus  apparently  combined  Ruth  with  Judges, 
and  Lamentations  with  Jeremiah;  thus  the  number 
was  reduced  by  two.  He  specifies  the  five  books  of 
Moses,  four  writings  of  hymns  to  God  and  practical 
precepts  to  men  (apparently  Psalms,  Song  of  Songs, 
Proverbs,  Koheleth),  and  thirteen  historical  works 
(the  remaining  books).  The  historian  unquestionably 
reproduced  the  opinions  currently  held  by  the  people. 

Somewhat  older  is  the  statement  in 
II  Maccabees      ,  ,  , 

the   second    prefatory   letter   loosely 

attached  to  II  Maccabees  (chapter  VI).     It  purports 
to  be  derived  from  the  writings  and  memoirs  of  Ne- 


THE  TRADITIONAL  VIEW 25 

hemiah  in  which  it  was  narrated  'how  he,  founding  a 
library,  gathered  together  the  books  about  the  kings 
and  prophets,  and  the  writings  of  David,  and  the 
letters  of  kings  concerning  the  holy  gifts.'  'In  like 
manner',  the  writers  continue,  'also  Judah  gathered 
together  for  us  all  those  writings  that  had  been  scat- 
tered by  reason  of  the  war,  and  they  remain  with  us.' 
The  second  statement  persumably  rests  upon  fact. 
During  the  religious  persecution  which  led  to  the  Mac- 
cabean  uprising,  when  the  scrolls  of  the  Torah  were 
rent  in  pieces  and  burnt,  and  any  person  was  put  to 
death  with  whom  a  'book  of  the  covenant'  was  found 
(I  Maccabees  1.  56,  57),  the  sacred  books,  whether 
in  the  Temple  or  in  the  Synagogues,  had  been  spirited 
away  and  kept  in  hiding;  some  may  have  perished; 
at  the  first  moment  of  the  restoration  Judah  collected 
from  every  nook  and  corner  all  that  was  left.  The 
first  statement  may  and  may  not  be  a  reflex  of  data 
furnished  in  Ezra-Nehemiah  and  Chronicles.  There 
the  rescripts  of  the  Persian  kings  concerning  gifts  to 
the  Temple  are  reproduced;  there  mention  is  made 
of  songs  of  praise  and  thanksgiving  by  Levitical  sing- 
ers according  to  the  command  of  David  (Nehemiah 
12.24),  and  one  of  them,  a  cento  made  up  of  Psalms 
105,  96,  and  106,  is  actually  pronounced  Davidic 
(I  Chronicles  16. 7-36);  there  also  we  find  the  circum- 
stantial account  of  the  reading  of  the  Book  of  the  Torah 
(Nehemiah  8-10),  with  which  may  have  been  coupled 
the  notion  that  the  'books  about  the  kings  and 


26  THE  SCRIPTURES  IN  THE  MAKING 

prophets',  that  is,  the  second  section  of  the  Scriptures, 
were  then  also  collected.  The  whole  therefore  amounts 
to  the  conception  that  the  three  parts  of  the  Scriptures 
were  constituted  a  'Library',  a  collection,  in  the  times 
of  Nehemiah,  whom  the  rabbis  include  among  the 
Men  of  the  Great  Synagogue. 

While  in  the  main  this  traditional  conception,  in 
Talmud,  in  Josephus,  in  II  Maccabees,  may  have  been 
built  up  from  data  in  the  Scriptures  themselves, 
whether  correctly  interpreted  or  not,  there  is  a  residue 
which  is  not  quite  reducible  to  scriptural  testimony. 
Naturally  the  Scriptures  are  silent  about  the  date  of 
their  own  completion.  But  as  the  process  of  Scripture 
making,  according  to  tradition  itself,  covered  a  long 
period,  we  may  expect  the  Scriptures  to  furnish  in- 

„,.     „,  ,   formation    concerning   certain    of 

The  Testimony  of   .  .     .      &  .  .  „. 

.,_,.,  its  parts  or  single  writings.     We 

the  Scriptures  .  ,s 

have  seen    (chapter    1)    how   the 

author  of  Daniel  cites  Jeremiah  from  a  collection  cal- 
led 'the  Books'.  He  may  be  alluding  to  a  'Bible'  just 
short  of  his  own  book,  or  merely  to  a  body  of  prophetic 
writings.  But  whether  that  body  was  similar  in  com- 
pass to  ours,  whether  in  particuliar  it  was  inclusive 
of  the  historical  works,  we  have  no  means  of  ascer- 
taining. All  that  we  can  say  is  that 'the  Books'  included 
Jeremiah  and  had  other  writings  besides.  It  is  signi- 
ficant, however,  that  this  is  the  only  instance  of  a  pro- 
phetic word  found  in  the  Scriptures  which  is  cited 
from  'Books'.  In  other  cases,  as  for  example  when  the 


THE  TRADITIONAL  VIEW 27 

concluding  verse  of  the  third  chapter  of  Micah  is 
cited  in  Jeremiah  26.  18,  it  is  reasonable  to  suppose 
that  the  quotations  were  derived  from  books,  but 
the  express  remark  is  wanting.  The  author  of  Chron- 
icles makes  reference  to  written 
The  Chronicler  ,  .,  ,  .  ^  ,  .  ,  . 

sources  tor  the  history  ot  the  kings 

from  David  to  Manasseh,  composed  by  prophets 
(Samuel,  Nathan,  Gad,  Abijah,  Iddo,  Shemaiah,  Jehu, 
Isaiah,  and  nameless  seers).  Some  of  these  are  said 
to  have  formed  part  of  the  book  of  the  kings  of  Judah 
and  Israel,  and  the  latter  is  mentioned  elsewhere  with- 
out further  specification  as  to  prophetic  authorship. 
It  cannot  be  maintained  exactly  that  our  books  of 
Samuel  and  Kings  are  meant.  Nevertheless,  there  is 
a  strong  presumption  that  those  books  formed  the 
main  body  of  an  historical  work  which  he  excerpted. 
He  may,  of  course,  have  had  at  his  disposal  also  in- 
dependent works  by  prophetic  writers.  This  much  is 
certain  that  here  we  meet  already  with  the  notion  of 
the  unbroken  succession  of  prophet-historians. 

There  are  references   in   the  Scriptures   to   other 

historical  works,  as  for  instance  in  our 
The  Book  „  ,  ,  „.  ,  .  .  ,  , 

,  _.  Book  of  Kings  to   chronicles     or  annals 

of  the  kings  of  Israel  and  Judah,  but  these 
and  similar  works  have  perished,  except  to  the  extent 
that  material  from  them  was  imbedded  in  the  script- 
ural histories  which  have  survived.  Hoewver,  these 
notices  of  lost  writings  are  helpful  to  an  understanding 
of  the  very  process  at  work  in  the  making  of  the  Script- 


& 

28  THE  SCRIPTURES  IN  THE  MAKING 


ures.   Equally  instructive  is  the  report  in  Jeremiah  36 

,    concerning  the  manner  in  which,  after  an 
Jeremiah 

activity  extending  over  twenty-three  years, 

the  prophet  set  about  to  commit  to  writing  his  ad- 
dresses ;  his  amanuensis  Baruch  wrote  at  the  prophet's 
dictation ;  likewise  to  him  was  assigned  the  task  of  re- 
writing the  roll,  after  it  was  burnt  by  king  Jehoiakim, 
with  many  additions.  We  may  be  quite  certain  that 
the  revised  and  amplified  copy  entered  into  the  make- 
up of  our  Book  of  Jeremiah,  but  whether  the  prophet 
himself  or  Baruch  or  someone  else  gave  final  form  to 
the  scriptural  book  cannot  be  stated  positively, 

_.     _,  In  dealing  with  references  to  the 

The  Testimony  „          .      ° 

,.  Torah  in   the    two   other  parts  of 

concerning  the  .     „    .  A 

—  the  Scriptures  we  must  confine  our- 

Torah  .                         ... 
selves  to  those  instances  in  which 

the  whole  of  it  or  any  part  of  its  contents  is  spoken  of 
as  'written'.  Thus  the  Chronicler  attests  as  Mosaic 
a  Book  of  the  Torah,  in  which  were  found  prescriptions 
concerning  the  daily  offerings  and  the  offerings  on  sab- 
baths, new  moons,  and  festivals  upon  the  altar  of  the 
burnt-offering  (I  Chronicles  16.40;  II  Chronicles  23. 
18; 3 1.3),  or  the  second  Passover  for  such  as  on  account 
of  uncleanness  were  not  able  to  offer  it  in  season  (II 
Chronicles  30.16);  and  if,  on  the  supposition  that 
Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah  was  originally  a  unit,  we 
add  the  direct  quotation  in  Nehemiah  13.2,  3  (from 
Deuteronomy  23.4,  6),  the  Chronicler's  Torah  cannot 
have  been  different  in  compass  from  our  own.  Daniel's 


THE  TRADITIONAL  VIEW  29 


Torah  had  in  it  a  'curse'  and  an  'oath'  pronounced 
upon  disobedience  (Daniel  9.11),  such  as  both  Levit- 
icus (26)  and  Deuteronomy  (28)  contain. 

Similarly  the  Book  of  the  Law  of  Moses,  which  Ezra 
in  the  year  444  B.  c.  E.  brought  forward  in  solemn  as- 
sembly and  to  which  the  people  bound  themselves  in 

a  document  signed  by  Nehemiah  and 
The  Torah  ,  ,  .  ,  , 

,  _,  other  notables,  was  none  other  than  the 

Pentateuch.  The  event  occurred  in  the 
seventh  month,  according  to  the  circumstantial  report 
in  chapters  8-10  of  Nehemiah.  On  the  first  day  of  the 
month,  Ezra,  standing  upon  a  platform  which  had  been 
erected  in  one  of  the  open  squares  of  Jerusalem,  with 
fellow-priests  on  either  side,  opened  the  Book  in  the 
sight  of  the  people.  As  he  opened  it,  the  people  stood 
up,  and  the  reader,  as  has  been  the  wont  ever  since, 
blessed  God,  the  Giver  of  the  Law,  while  the  people 
raised  their  hands  in  thanks  to  Heaven  and  answered : 
Amen,  Amen.  In  the  hearing  of  the  people,  men, 
women,  and  children,  Ezra  read  from  early  morning 
until  midday.  The  Levites  made  the  rounds  among 
the  standing  people,  and  repeated  to  them  the  words 
read.  The  reading,  we  are  told,  was  done  distinctly, 
with  the  observation  of  the  proper  stops,  and  possibly 
with  accompanying  interpretation — in  Hebrew,  of 
course,  which  was  then  still  the  language  of  the  people 
— with  the  full  intention  that  the  sense  might  be  grasp- 
ed by  the  audience  and  the  reading  understood.  The 
impression  upon  the  hearers  was  that  of  gloom;  the 


80  THE  SCRIPTURES  IN  THE  MAKING 

people  wept  as  they  listened  to  the  word  of  God  hitherto 
imperfectly  heeded  and  to  the  threats  of  national 
calamity  which  indeed  had  become  a  reality ;  but  at  the 
encouraging  words  of  Nehemiah  and  Ezra  and  the 
teaching  Levites  the  mood  soon  passed  away,  and  in 
joyful  exaltation  over  the  Law  which  was  theirs  to  hold 
and  to  cherish  the  people  dispersed  to  their  homes. 
On  the  second  day  the  reading  was  continued,  this 
time  in  the  privacy  of  Ezra's  home  and  before  a  select 
gathering  of  heads  of  families  and  priests  and  Levites, 
and  the  portion  read  concerned  the  celebration  of  the 
Feast  of  Tabernacles.  The  Feast  was  observed  in  the 
manner  prescribed  in  Leviticus  23.40,  42.  Day  by  day 
the  Law  was  read  to  the  people.  On  the  twenty-fourth 
day  of  the  month  a  fast  was  observed,  and  the  reading 
from  the  Torah  occupied  one  fourth  of  the  day.  In  the 
document  of  ratification  certain  provisions  are  specified 
as  'written'  in  the  Torah  and  others  are  unmistakably 
derived  from  it;  the  range  covers  practically  the  four 
books  of  the  Pentateuch  in  which  there  is  legislation. 
Other  regulations,  like  the  offering  of  the  wood,  and 
modifications  in  the  amount  of  the  poll-tax  or  disposi- 
tion of  the  tithe  from  the  Levitical  tithe,  show  that  the 
era  of  adapting  the  ancient  Torah  to  new  conditions 
had  begun. 

_        ,,  Ezra  was  a  'scribe',  a'ready  scribe'. 

Ezra  the  Scribe  _,,  .        '  •  «,•*•! 

I  hat  does  not  signify  a  copyist  with 

good  penmanship,  but  rather  a  'bookish  man',  a  man 
of  the  Book,  well  versed  in  the  sacred  writings,  a 


THE  TRADITIONAL  VIEW 31 

scholar  and  student  of  the  law,  the  first  of  a  long  line 
of  teachers  who  succeeded  him.  Nor  did  Ezra,  as  is 
mistakenly  held,  in  the  name  and  by  authority  of  the 
king  of  Persia,  impose  the  law  upon  the  Jews,  who  were 
not  at  all  willing  to  receive  it.  The  Torah  required  for 

the  Jew  no  sanction  at  the  hands  of  a 
The  Powers  c  .  .  .  ,  .  .  . 

,  foreign  ruler;  it  carried  its  authority 

conferred  .  ,    .      „„       .,  j     / 

_  with  it.    What  Ezra  sought  and  ob- 

tained from  the  king  was  the  right  of 
internal  autonomy  for  the  re-constituted  community; 
and  internal  autonomy  expressed  itself  first  and  fore- 
most in  a  native  judiciary  competent  to  sentence 
malefactors  and  to  execute  judgment,  whether  it  be 
unto  death,  or  to  banishment,  or  to  confiscation  of 
goods,  or  to  imprisonment  (Ezra  7.25,  26). 

,    _,  Earlier  still,  in  the  eighteenth  year 

Josiah  s  Book  of    ,..      T    .  ,/,««  \^    n     , 

*      _,  of  king  Josiah  (621  B.  c.  E.)  the  Book 

the  Covenant         f  ,   **„;      ,      ,         „    ,    '    „     .     . 

of  the  Torah,  also  called  the  Book  of 

the  Covenant,  apparently  long  lost,  had  been  discov- 
ered in  the  Temple,  read  to  the  people,and  made  the 
law  of  the  realm.  The  account  is  found  in  chapters 
.  22  and  23  of  the  Second  Book  of  Kings  and  substan- 
tiated by  allusions  in  the  Book  of  Jeremiah, notably  the 
eleventh  chapter,  where  the  prophet  is  described  as  an 
'itinerant  preacher'  of  the  promulgated  book.  Upon 
the  basis  of  the  recovered  book  immediate  measures 
were  taken  to  re-constitute  the  religious  affairs  in  the 
kingdom.  Thus  idolatrous  appurtenances  which  had 
been  introduced  by  former  kings,  like  altars  to  the  sun 


32  THE  SCRIPTURES  IN  THE  MAKING 

and  moon,  pillars  and  poles,  horses  and  chariots  ded- 
icated to  the  sun,  were  destroyed,  and  various  idol- 
atrous practices,  like  making  children  pass  through  the 
fire,  were  forbidden.  The  ordinances  concerning  all 
these  articles  of  worship  or  rites  are  found  in  Deute- 
ronomy, but  also  in  Exodus  and  Leviticus.  The  out- 
standing feature  of  what  may  be  termed  the  Act  of 
621  was  the  destruction  of  the 'high  places',  or  country 
sanctuaries,  and  the  centralization  of  sacrificial  wor- 
ship in  the  Temple  of  Jerusalem.  That  squares,  of 
course,  with  the  law  in  Deuteronomy.  It  is  its  most 
characteristic  injunction.  Nevertheless,  as  the  plain 
sense  of  II  Kings  23.9  indicates,  one  of  the  provisions 
of  Deuteronomy  (18.6-8),  touching  the  admission  of 
the  priests  of  the  high  places  to  ministrations  in  the 
Temple,  was  found  impracticable.  Here,  as  in  the  case 
of  Ezra,  the  process  of  adjusting  the  Torah  to  the  con- 
ditions of  the  time  had  set  in. 

The  important  point,  however,  is  that  the  author 
of  the  account  is  quite  explicit  about  the  antiquity  of 
A  f  '*-i7  ^e  recovered  book.  It  was  none  other 
than  the  Torah  of  Moses  (23.25),  not 
merely  in  the  sense  that  it  embodied  teachings  of  Mo- 
ses, but  that  it  was  the  very  book  written  by  the  Law- 
giver. Or,  as  the  expression  runs  in  17.37,  it  was  the 
Torah  written  by  the  Lord  at  the  time  of  the  exodus, 
which  naturally  means:  written  by  the  Lord  through 
the  hand  of  Moses,  or:  written  by  Moses  at  the  dicta- 
tion of  the  Lord.  David  had  it  and  enjoined  his  son  to 


THE  TRADITIONAL  VIEW 33 

keep  all  that  is  'written'  therein  (I  Kings  2.3).  It  was 
in  the  hands  of  Amaziah,  who  refrained  from  putting 
to  death  the  children  of  his  father's  assassins,  'as  it  is 
written  in  the  book  of  the  Torah  of  Moses  which  the 
Lord  commanded',  and  a  full  verse  is  cited  from  Deu- 
teronomy 24.  16:  'The  fathers  shall  not  be  put  to 
death  for  the  children,  nor  the  children  be  put  to  death 
for  the  fathers;  but  every  man  shall  be  put  to  death 
for  his  own  sin'  (II  Kings  14.6).  Apparently  it  is  the 
narrator's  opinion  that  at  some  point  in  the  subsequent 
period  the  book  was  lost.  There  is  sufficient  indication 
that  he  believed  this  loss  to  have  occurred  after  Hez- 
ekiah's  reign.  That  accords  with  the  opinion  of  cer- 
tain of  the  rabbis (Sanhedrinl03b)  that  Amon,  Josiah's 
father,  committed  the  Torah  to  the  flames,  on  which 
occasion,  according  to  Rashi,  a  single  copy  was  rescued 
and  hidden  under  a  layer  in  the  walls  of  the  Temple. 
Of  Ahaz,  the  father  of  Hezekiah,  the  rabbis  assert  that 
he  had  the  Torah  sealed  up. 

_,  .  References  to  the  Mosaic  Torah 

References  to  the  .         ,      ,         f       ,  .      , 

_,      .   .     T    .  as  a  written  book  are  found  in  the 

Torah  in  Joshua      D     ,     c  T    ,         ~,  f 

Book  of  Joshua.  The  successor  of 

Moses,  on  his  assumption  of  office,  is  charged  to  study 
'this'  Book  of  the  Torah  day  and  night,  in  order  to  do 
according  to  all  that  is  'written'  therein  (1.8).  After 
the  destruction  of  Ai,  Joshua  erects  an  altar  on  mount 
Ebal,  in  obedience  to  the  order  of  Moses — not  an  oral 
charge,  but  'as  it  is  written  in  the  Book  of  the  Torah  of 
Moses'  (8.31).  He  furthermore  writes  there  on  stones 


34  THE  SCRIPTURES  IN  THE  MAKING 

a  copy  of  the  Torah  of  Moses,  and  then  reads  in  the 
hearing  of  the  people,  men,  women, and  children,  the 
words  of  the  Torah,  the  Blessing  and  the  Curse,  'ac- 
cording to  all  that  is  written  in  the  Book  of  the  Torah' 
(8.32-34).  It  is  clear  that  the  injunctions  in  Deuteron- 
omy 27  are  meant.  It  is  impossible,  however,  to  say 
how  much  besides  Deuteronomy,  according  to  the 
mind  of  the  writer,  there  was  in  the  Torah.  Medieval 
Jewish  sholars,  like  Saadya,  would  have  it  that  only 
an  epitome  of  the  legal  portions  of  the  Torah  was 
written  on  the  stones — an  epitome,  of  course,  of  the 
whole  Torah.  In  the  last  chapter  of  Joshua  (verse  26) 
reference  is  made  to  the  Book  of  the  Torah  of  God; 
Joshua  is  said  to  have  appended  thereto  the  enactment 
by  which  the  people  bound  themselves  to  worship  the 
Lord  solely.  But  what  this  Book  of  the  Torah  was  like 
is  not  indicated. 

In  the  Torah  itself  it  is  said  of 
The  Testimony        ,,  ,     T      j. 

.  .,     _      ,  Moses  that  he  wrote  at  the  Lord  s 

of  the  Torah  ,  x,  ,    ,   .  , 

.,    ,,      command  the  record  of  the  attack 
concerning  itself       f  .       ,  ,    ,_,      ,      <*<A\       ,    f 
of  Amalek  (Exodus  17.14)  and  of 

the  journeyings  through  the  wilderness  (Numbers  33. 
2).  He  furthermore  wrote  the  'Words  of  the  Lord' 
making  up  the  'Book  of  the  Covenant' (Exodus  24.4,7). 
He  is  also  ordered  to  write  down  the  contents  of  the 
covenant  of  Exodus  34.  10-26  (the  matter  is  largely 
contained  in  23.  10-19).  On  the  other  hand,  the  Ten 
Words  upon  the  tables  of  stone,  both  the  first  and  the 
last,  were  written  by  God  (Exodus  24.  12;  32.16;  24. 


THE  TRADITIONAL  VIEW 35 

28;  Deuteronomy  10.  2,  4).  In  Deuteronomy  31.  22,24 
Moses  is  said  to  have  written  the  'Song'  (Deuteronomy 
32)  and  'the  words  of  this  Torah  in  a  book,  until  they 
were  finished'.  The  expression  'this  Torah'  occurs 
again  and  again  in  Deuteronomy,  so,  for  example,  in 
31.11  (following  upon  the  statement  in  verse  9  that 
Moses  wrote  'this  Torah'  and  consigned  it  to  the  keep- 
ing of  the  priests)  where  Moses  commands  that  every 
seven  years,  on  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles,  'this  Torah' 
be  read  before  the  whole  people.  Naturally  the  ex- 
pression may  refer  to  Deuteronomy,  but  just  as 
well  to  the  whole  Pentateuch.  The  Mishna  (Sotah 
7.8)  decrees  that  the  reading  every  seven  years  shall 
be  confined  to  portions  of  Deuteronomy.  The  Jewish 
commentators  are  agreed,  however,  that  'this  Torah' 
which  Moses  wrote  and  turned  over  to  the  priests  was 
the  entire  Pentateuch  from  beginning  to  end. 


CHAPTER  III 
THE  UNTRADITIONAL  VIEW 

Towards  the  close  of  the  eleventh  century  of  the 
common  era  a  Jewish  commentator  of  Cordova,  Moses 

ru  r»u-  MJII  IDn  Chiquitilla,  suggested  that  the 
Ibn  ChiquitiUa  j  u  ir  r  lu  n  i  c  T  •  u 

..     o  second  half  of  the  Book  of  Isaiah, 

on  the  Second  ,      .     .          .  ,      ,  .A 

TT  *£  e.  T  •  t.  beginning  with  chapter  40,  was 
Half  of  Isaiah  .  s  , 

the  work  or  a  prophet  near  the  end 

of  the  Babylonian  exile.  The  break  with  tradition  is 
remarkable  considering  that  at  so  early  a  date  as  the 
second  century  B.  C.  E.  the  belief  was  current  that 
Isaiah  son  of  Amoz,  the  contemporary  of  King  Hez- 
ekiah,  wrote  the  whole  book.  Thus  Sirach  (48.24,25) 
relates  of  him  that  'by  a  spirit  of  might  he  saw  what 
should  come  to  pass  at  the  latter  end,  and  comforted 
them  that  mourned  for  Zion;  he  declared  the  things 
that  should  be  to  the  end  of  time,  and  the  hidden  things 

or  ever  they  came'.  The  same 
He  also  assigns  ,.  ,  ,  , 

,  _.  medieval       scholar       pronounces 

several  Psalms  to    ,-,    .          .  ~      .  n       1  n , 

_.  Psalms    42,    47,      106    to    have 

the  Times  of  the     ,  ,  .    „  ,    ,  ,  . , 

been  penned  in  Babylon,  and  the 

two  concluding  verses  of  Psalm  51 
were,  according  to  him,  added  by  one  of  the  saints  in 
the  Babylonian  captivity. 

In  the  twelfth  century  Abraham 
Ibn  Ezra  on  T,  „  r  , 

A.     _  ,      Ibn  Ezra, far-famed  as  a  grammarian 

the  Pentateuch  ,       ,  .     c    .  ^  , 

and  expounder  of  the  Scriptures,  al- 


THE  UNTRADITIONAL  VIEW 37 

though  repudiating  the  notion  of  a  bold  compatriot 
that  the  list  of  the  Edomite  kings  'before  there  reigned 
any  king  over  the  children  of  Israel'  (Genesis  30.31) 
was  composed  in  the  times  of  Jehoshaphat,  gives  ex- 
pression in  veiled  language  to  the  thought  that  certain 
passages  of  the  Torah  appear  to  have  been  written  long 
after  Moses.  The  points  seized  upon  by  him  are  the 
well-known  anachronisms,  references  to  conditions 
which  developed  in  aftertimes  and  the  treatment  of 
events  contemporaneous  with  Moses  in  a  manner 
indicating  that  the  writer  looks  upon  them  as  things 
of  the  remote  past.  The  break  with  tradition  is  clear 
enough  to  him;  it  is  a  truth  to  be  spoken  of  in  myste- 
rious tones;  'the  prudent  doth  keep  silence'.  A  century 
later  the  commentator  Moses  son  of  Nahmanof  Gerona, 
was  shocked  by  Ibn  Ezra's  untraditional  views,  and 
denounced  him  as  'a  talebearer  that  goeth  about  with 
open  rebuke  and  hidden  love.' 

Ibn  Ezra's  critical  comments  were  taken  up  in  the 

_,  .  seventeenth  century  by  the  philosopher  Spi- 

Spinoza  •  j       u  ui    u         j  .uu    •  , 

noza,  and  carried  probably  beyond  the  intent 

of  the  Spanish  commentator.  To  Spinoza  Ibn  Ezra's 
strictures  prove  conclusively  that  the  Pentateuch  was 
written  'not  by  Moses  but  by  someone  who  lived  long 
after  him'.  Moses,  he  conjectures,  may  have  com- 
mitted to  writing  certain  narratives  and  laws.  Still 
he  would  base  himself  on  such  evidence  as  is  incon- 
testable. On  the  whole  Spinoza  favors  the  view  that 
Ezra  compiled  the  Pentateuch  out  of  divers  sources 


38  THE  SCRIPTURES  IN  THE  MAKING 

which  he  transcribed  and  excerpted.  The  compiler  for- 
bore to  remove  duplications  or  to  straighten  out  con- 
tradictions in  detail.  Spinoza  has  been  called  the  father 
of  modern  biblical  criticism.  In  one  point  he  transcends 
his  successors.  He  looks  upon  the  Torah  and  the  his- 
torical books  which  follow,  from  Joshua  to  Kings,  as 
one  great  historical  work  concerning  the  antiquities 
of  the  Jewish  people  from  the  first  beginnings  to  the 
destruction  of  Jerusalem  in  586  B.  c.  E.  And  the  author 
of  this  history  was  Ezra. 

In  order  to  offset  the  attack  upon  the  Mosaic  author- 
ship of  the  Pentateuch  on  the  part  of  the  'freethinkers', 
.  Jean  Astruc,  a  physician  of  Montpellier,  wrote 

his  'Conjectures  on  the  original  memoirs  of 
which  it  appears  that  Moses  made  use  in  composing 
the  book  of  Genesis' (printed  1753).  His  starting-point  is 
the  observation,  long  noted  and  variously  explained, 
that  through  entire  chapters  or  large  portions  of  chap- 
ters the  name  of  the  Deity  appears  consecutively 
either  as  'God'  (Elohim)  or  as  'the  Lord'  (Jhwh). 
Thus  at  the  opening  of  Genesis  'God'  is  employed 
throughout  in  chapter  1  and  the  first  three  verses  of 
chapter  2,  while  from  there  to  the  end  of  chapter  4 
(with  the  exception  of  4.25  and  in  the  interlocution 
between  the  serpent  and  the  woman,  3.  1,  5)  we  find 
either  the  composite  'the  Lord  God'  or  simply  'the 
Lord'.  The  novel  explanation  proposed  by  Astruc  is 
that  the  change  of  appellation  is  the  mark  of  divers 
writers.  The  means  is  thus  afforded  for  recognizing 


THE  UNTRADITIONAL  VIEW 89 

the  constituent  writings,  originally  independent  and 
disparate,  but  largely  parallel  in  subject-matter. 
Astruc  realizes  that  his  theory  constitutes  a  general 
solution  of  all  the  duplications,  contradictions,  and 
disorders  in  arrangement  which  hitherto  have  baffled 
the  ingenuity  of  commentators.  In  confining  himself 
to  Genesis  and  the  first  two  chapters  of  Exodus  Astruc 
has  no  difficulty  in  persuading  himself  that  Moses 
derived  his  knowledge  of  history  from  the  dawn  of 
creation  to  his  own  birth  from  writings  by  those  that 
preceded  him;  these  he  placed  in  parallel  columns;  but 
at  a  subsequent  period  they  were  copied  in  consecutive 
form  or  worked  into  one  another. 

_.     _.  When  once  the  process  was 

The  Theory  carried  .   ,  .  x      ,        L      i_    i       r 

'      _,     ,      carried  into  the  other  books  of 
into  the  other  Books    ,      _,  , 

,  ..     _,  the  Pentateuch  and  the  same 

of  the  Pentateuch         ,  f  .,     . 

phenomenon  of  compilation  was 

observed  in  the  narratives  dealing  with  the  times  of 
Moses  himself,  it  followed  that  the  compiler  must  have 
been  someone  other  than  Moses.  The  successive  steps 
by  which  the  hypothesis  was  worked  outinits  entirety 
need  not  detain  us  here.Suffice  it  to  say  that  by  the  labors 
of  a  galaxy  of  biblical  scholars,chiefly  of  Protestant  Ger- 
many and  Holland  in  the  nineteenth  century,  with 
support  from  other,  including  Jewish,  quarters,  the 
analysis  was  perfected  and  the  constituent  'documents' 
or  independent  writings  were  believed  to  have  been 
neatly  separated.  The  sum  of  the  findings  of  the  school 
were  set  forth  with  much  acumen  and,  one  is  almost 


40  THE  SCRIPTURES  IN  THE  MAKING 

tempted  to  say,  with  great  eloquence  not  quite  fifty 
years  ago  by  Wellhausen.   The  new  opinion  operates 

with  internal  evidence  as  furnished  by 
Wellhausen  .,       ,  r  ,.  . 

the  change  of  divine  names,  repetitions, 

contradictions,  incongruities  of  sequence,  and  differ- 
ences of  vocabulary  and  turns  of  speech.  As  a  result 
three  main  strata  are  made  to  emerge  into  view. 
There  is  in  the  first  place  a  body  of  narrative,  itself 
composite,  characterized  by  the  consummate  art  of 
story-telling,  the  vividness  of  the  pictures,  the  richness 
in  lineaments  of  detail,  their  fullness  of  color  and  life 
(one  need  think  only  of  the  Joseph  story  which  is  the 
delight  of  children) ;  into  it  was  worked  a  code  of  laws, 
the  Book  of  the  Covenant  of  Exodus  21-23,  and  the 
Decalogue  (Ten  Commandments)  of  Exodus  20. 
Secondly  there  is  the  Code  of  Deuteronomy  with  its 
narrative  introductions  and  postscripts;  and,  lastly, 
the  Priests'  Code  to  which  belong  the  whole  of  Levit- 
icus and  substantial  parts  of  Exodus  and  Numbers, 
together  with  scattered  portions,  now  larger  now  smal- 
ler, in  the  remaining  books;  whatever  of  narrative  it 
contains  serving  merely  as  the  framework,  dry  and 
pedantic,  characterized  by  attention  to  genealogies, 
lists  of  names,  and  dates. 

External  evidence  supplied  by 
The  Dating  of  the    .  ,    .          *. K  ,    ,. 

._.  ° ,  the  progress  or  the  nation  s  his- 

Documents  ,   ,  .     .,  ,     . 

tory  as  revealed  in  the  prophetic 

literature  is  then  called  into  service  to  place  these 
three  'documents'  into  proper  chronological  sequence. 


THE  UNTRADITIONAL  VIEW 41 

The  Code  of  Deuteronomy  (chapters  12-26  of  Deut- 
eronomy) is  identified  with  the  Book  of  the  Torah 
found  in  the  eighteenth  year  of  Josiah.  The  story  of 
its  loss  and  discovery  is  pronounced  a  fiction  pure  and 
simple.  It  had  not  been  written  until  then.  Its  pur- 
pose was  to  embody  the  programme  of  the  party  of 
reformers  by  whom  the  king  had  been  won  over.  Its 
cardinal  demand  of  restricting  sacrificial  worship  to 
the  Temple  at  Jerusalem  and  of  doing  away  with  the 
country  sanctuaries  was  something  new,  wholly  un- 
heard of  in  the  past.  By  royal  decree  the  Code  was 

made  the  law  of  the  realm.  This 
The  Code  of  _  .  ,  , 

_  ,         official  act  imparted  sanction  to 

Deuteronomy  from   ,  n  r>     i 

£.      r>   r»  i?  tne  sma"  Book  purporting  to  come 

021  15.  Vs»  1£.  f  .,  e  ^i  ,     i 

from  the  pen  of  the  ancient  law- 
giver. This  volume  was  the  first  of  its  kind,  the  cell  out 
of  which  the  whole  organism  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  in 
due  course  of  time  developed. 

Back  of  Deuteronomy,  a 
The  Narrative  Document  .. 

,.  ,.  century  earlier,  the  compo- 

a  Century  earlier  ,    ,  /. 

nent  parts  of  the  great  his- 
torical work  of  which  the  Book  of  the  Covenant  in 
Exodus  is  a  part,  had  been  written  down.  That  Code, 
which  is  only  loosely  connected  with  the  body  of  nar- 
rative, is  supposed  to  have  been  largely  a  compilation 
of  private  initiative  which  was  never  promulgated 
officially.  It  embodied  ancient  customary  law  as  it 
had  arisen  in  successive  generations  and  presupposes 
in  its  every  part  the  settled  conditions  of  the  centuries 


42  THE  SCRIPTURES  IN  THE  MAKING 

after  the  conquest.  It  sanctions  a  plurality  of  sanct- 
uaries in  accordance  with  the  ancient  custom  antedating 
Josiah  and  Deuteronomy.  The  whole  work  is  synchron- 
ous with  the  riseof  the  great  prophets  in  theeighth  cent- 
ury .  It  moves  along  with  them , but  it  does  not  register  the 
finished  product  of  their  aims  and  strivings.  Deutero- 
nomy is  the  precipitate  of  the  prophetic  movement 
and  puts  the  seal  upon  it ;  the  older  work — Code  and 
narrative — forms  its  background.  Naturally  the  latter 
is  truer  to  the  past  from  which  it  has  not  cut  itself 
quite  loose. 

mi.    T»  •        >  r*  On  the  lines  from  Deuteronomy 

The  Priests  Code 

,.  .   .  and  past  the  prophet  kzekiel,  ac- 

a  Century  later  , "         «r  w^ 

cording  to  Wellhausen,  moves  the 

body  of  priestly  legislation.  The  two  earlier  writings 
project  themselves  into  Mosaic  times,  but  the  disguise 
— say  the  critics — is  transparent  enough.  The  Priests' 
Code,  on  the  other  hand,  consistently  maintains  its 
assumed  role  and  never  for  a  moment  betrays  the  times 
in  which  it  was  actually  composed.  But  if  we  probe 
deeper  we  shall  find  that  the  things  which  in  the  Code 
of  Deuteronomy  are  put  forward  as  a  programme  still 
to  be  realized  are  here  treated  as  unquestioned  real- 
ities. The  native  kingship  has  disappeared ;  under  the 
foreign  overlord  there  is  room  but  for  a  'prince';  the 
high  priest  is  making  ready  to  take  over  the  headship 
of  the  religious  community  which  has  been  constructed 
upon  the  ruins  of  the  defunct  nation.  Ezra  probably 
introduced  the  entire  Pentateuch,  or  his  Book  of  the 


THE  UNTRADITIONAL  VIEW  43 

Torah  may  have  consisted  merely  of  the  Priests'  Code. 
In  the  latter  case  the  final  'redaction'  of  the  complete 
Pentateuch  would  date  from  times  subsequent  to 
Ezra.  At  any  rate  the  enactment  of  444  bases  itself 
squarely  upon  the  Priests'  Code  which  from  that  year 
on  becomes  the  norm  of  Jewish  life.  It  was  the  second 
step  in  the  formation  of  officially  accepted,  author- 
itative Scriptures. 

The  book  of  Joshua,  it  is  said,  was 
The  Historical        -  ,  ,     ,        . 

•D     «  at  first  an  intergal  part  of  what  the 

critics  therefore  designate  as  the 
Hexateuch  (sixfold  book).  The  same  three  strands  ob- 
servable in  the  Pentateuch  run  through  the  sixth  book. 
Its  contents,  dealing  with  the  conquest  and  distribu- 
tion of  the  land,  form  the  necessary  conclusion  to  the 
Pentateuch;  there  we  have  the  preparation  and  the 
laws  for  the  government  of  the  land,  here  the  execution. 
The  historical  books  which  follow  Joshua  (Judges, 
Samuel,  Kings)  are  likewise  composite;  but  it  is  not 
possible  to  identify  their  constituent  sources  with 
those  discovered  in  the  Pentateuch.  Still  the  compiler 
must  have  belonged  to  the  same  school  which  made 
those  additions  which  we  find  in  front  and  after  the 
Deuteronomic  Code.  He  is  called  the  Deuteronomist. 
He  was  a  man  impregnated  with  the  ideas  of  the  Deu- 
teronomic legislation,  and  these  furnished  the  angle 
from  which  the  past  was  condemned,  solely  because 
it  failed  to  live  up  to  regulations  to  which  it  was  a 
stranger.  From  the  pen  of  this  compiler  come  those 


44  THE  SCRIPTURES  IN  THE  MAKING 

moralizing  portions  whose  theme  is  the  contrast  be- 
tween what  should  have  been  and  what  actually  was. 
But  withal  the  compiler  was  content  with  supplying 
the  corrective  to  the  representation  of  the  history  of 
the  nation  in  the  older  documents  excerpted  by  him; 
he  refrained  from  recasting  it  completely.  It  was  re- 
served for  the  Chronicler  to  make  good  this  omission. 
His  undertaking  was  not  the  first  of  its  kind ;  it  had  had 
predecessors.  The  history  of  the  nation  from  David 
to  the  fall  of  the  state  was  now  remodeled  in  full  accord 
with  the  legislation  of  the  Priests'  Code.  The  compiler 
cuts  short  practically  the  entire  history  of  the  Northern 
Kingdom.  Judah  alone  enters  within  his  purview; 
David  is  glorified ;  the  pious  kings  are  depicted  as  most 
zealous  observers  of  the  Torah — that  is  the  Torah  as 
the  compiler  knew  it;  in  the  foreground  of  interest 
stands  the  Temple  with  its  priests  and  Levites,  its 
sacrifices  and  song  ritual.  The  compiler  carried  the 
history  beyond  the  fall  of  the  state  by  incorporating 
the  memoirs  of  Ezra  and  Nehemiah,  and  the  list  of 
high  priests  includes  Jaddua,  the  priest  who  met 
Alexander  the  Great  at  the  gates  of  Jerusalem.  Chron- 
icles-Ezra-Nehemiah  thus  reveals  itself  as  a  work  of 
the  Grecian  period.  Its  position  in  the  third  division 
of  the  Scriptures  (chapter  I)  shows  that  the  second 
division  containing  the  historical  books  had  been 
closed. 


THE  UNTRADITIONAL  VIEW 45 

_.     p      .      .        The  same  division  has  in  it  also  the 

four  strictly  prophetic  books.   We  may 

Collection  .        / 

take  them  up  in  the  order  prescribed  in 

the  Talmud  (chapter  I) :  Jeremiah,  Ezekiel,  Isaiah,  and 
the  Twelve.  The  Book  of  Jeremiah  is  very  much  like 
in  its  make-up  to  the  Book  of  Kings.with  which  indeed 
the  Talmud  couples  it  as  belonging  to  the  same  author 
(chapter  II).  It  is  largely  biographical  and  appears 
to  have  been  compiled  by  Baruch,  who  must  have  used 
the  material  of  prophetic  addresses  which  he  himself 
wrote  down  at  the  prophet's  dictation  (as  above). 
Ezekiel  is  practically  as  the  prophet  himself  left  it. 
Isaiah  is  no  less  a  collection  than  the  Twelve.  Not  only 
is  the  second  half  of  the  book  the  work  of  an  anonymous 
prophet  living  at  or  after  the  termination  of  the 
Babylonian  exile,  but  even  in  the  first  part  there  is 
matter  which  does  not  belong  to  the  genuine  Isaiah. 

_    ,.     ,  .,.  There  is  a  radical  school  which  op- 

Radical  Views  .  .  ,     •, 

crates  quite  recklessly  with  the  pro- 
phetic books  as  they  stand  in  the  Scriptures.  Accord- 
ing to  the  view  of  these  scholars,  a  very  small  propor- 
tion in  the  volumes  of  the  prophets  antecedent  to  the 
fall  of  the  state  (pre-exilic  prophets)  may  be  ascribed 
to  the  men  whose  names  the  books  bear.  By  far  the 
greater  amount  is  late  accretion,  dating  from  post- 
exilic  times,  nay,  largely  from  the  Maccabean  period. 
In  this  connection  a  general  theory  is  propounded  both 
by  writers  who  have  a  claim  to  originality  and  by  men 


46  THE  SCRIPTURES  IN  THE  MAKING 

who  are  adepts  at  popularizing 
Literary  Ownership.  .  ,  £ 

the  heavy  work  done  by  others. 
Interpolations  T.  .  .,  ,,  .  ,  , 

It  is  that  the  ancients  had  no 

conception  of  literary  ownership.  Every  reader  felt 
free  to  annotate  a  book  old  or  recent,  to  introduce  ad- 
ditions (interpolations),  to  strike  out  parts,  and  in 
general  to  publish  the  book  anew  under  the  old  title, 
but  in  a  greatly  modified  form.  As  one  writer  puts  it, 
a  gaping  blank  in  the  roll  or  even  in  a  column  was  an 
invitation  to  supplementers  to'enrich'the  contents  with 
elaborations  of  their  own.  At  length  the  prophetic 
division  was  closed.  As  Daniel  was  not  placed  among 
the  prophets  (chapter  I) ,  the  sealing  of  the  second  part 
of  the  Scriptures  must  have  occurred  before  the  Book 
of  Daniel  gained  currency  and  was  given  scriptural 
rank.  Obviously  there  is  a  lapse  of  time  between  the 
writing  of  a  book  and  its  acceptance  or  recognition. 
Aproximately  therefore  the  closing  took  place  in  the 
Maccabean  period ;  with  the  closing  process  went  hand 
in  hand  that  of  interpolation  which  marked  the  finish- 
ing touches  applied  to  a  literature  all  ready,  when  orig- 
inal products  were  no  longer  forthcoming  and  imit- 
ators plied  their  trade. 
_.  _..  ,  The  writings  of  the  entire  third  division 

are  pronounced  to  be  products  of  the  post- 
Division  ...          .    ,    .,    .  .    f          .  .    ,. 

exilic  period,  that  is  trom  the  concluding 

decades  of  the  Persian  dominion  clear  almost  to  the 
Roman.  Over  against  the  moderate  position  that 
certain  Psalms  are  post-exilic  and  possibly  even  Mac- 


THE  UNTRADITIONAL  VIEW 47 

cabean,  the  exaggerated  statement  is  made  that  none 
of  the  Psalms  is  of  pre-exilic  date.  By  an  erroneous 
construction  put  upon  a  notice  in  the  Mishna  which 
we  reserve  for  discussion  below  (chapter  VI)  the  con- 
tention is  made  (and  repeated  without  further  exam- 
ination by  popularizing  authors)  that  the  third  divi- 
sion was  not  closed  until  two  decades  after  the  fall  of 
the  second  Temple. 

Thus,  roughly  speaking,  the  process  of  the  making 

The  Entire  Process  of  th?  ScriPtures  .as    a  body  of 
sacred    writings    invested    with 

authority  and  generally  recognized  as  such,  passed 
through  three  stages  each  separated  from  the  other  by 
an  interval  of  two  or  three  centuries;  the  Torah  was 
completed  about  400  B.  c.  E.,  the  Prophets  about  100 
B.  c.  E.,  and  the  Ketubim  about  100  c.  E.  The  be- 
ginnings of  the  process  must  be  placed  in  621  B.  c.  E. 
when  Deuteronomy  was  promulgated. 

In  the  light  of  the  critical  position  as  outlined  in  this 
chapter  it  will,  however,  be  understood  that  the  critics 
by  no  means  make  of  the  Torah  the  earliest  written  book. 
It  was  simply  the  earliest  to  be  recognized,  accepted, 
and  elevated  to  scriptural  rank.  The  prophetic  writ- 
ings in  their  genuine  pre-exilic  parts  have  been  com- 

HM-    ™  mitted  to  writing  at  an  earlier  period, 

The  Place  of    ,  ,       ,      ,  .  , 

..  „,  .  but  they  circulated  only  as  private  vol- 
the  Torah  .y  .  •  r  j-  •  1 

umes  m  the  possession  of  disciples  or 

admiring  followers.  In  the  language  of  the  critical 
school,  'the  prophets  antedate  the  Torah  and  both 


48  THE  SCRIPTURES  IN  THE  MAKING 

the  Psalter',  or  'the  Law  came  in  between'.  According- 
ly, the  Torah  is  an  interloper  in  the  spiritual  progress 
initiated  by  the  prophets  and  still  alive  in  the  piety 
of  the  psalmists;  the  form  of  religious  polity  and  life 
created  by  it  constitutes  'an  immense  retrogression'. 

_  ,       There  is  a  more  moderate  school, 

t       which,  while  at  one  with  the  methods  of 
the  Critical  .  .  .  ..    , .     .    c    . 

_,.  modern  criticism  as  applied  to  the  Scrip- 

tures, refuses  to  accept  the  conclusions 
in  their  entire  range.  Thus  it  evinces  a  tendency  to 
raise  the  date  of  the  biblical  books ;  in  particular  it  con- 
siders the  Priests'  Code  to  have  antedated  Deute- 
ronomy. But  the  critical  theory  was  wholly  rejected 
by  the  orthodox  wing  without,  however,  influencing 
the  great  mass  of  students  who  are  taught  to  look 
upon  the  opponents  of  the  critical  results  as  reaction- 
aries. Catholic  scholars  carried  the  discussion 
into  their  own  circles,  and  at  length  official  action  by 
the  Church  became  imperative.  In  1907  a  Papal 
Commission  brought  in  a  report  declaring  Moses  to 
have  been  the  author  of  the  Pentateuch  in  the  sense 
that  he  conceived  the  work  in  detail  but  left  the  ex- 
ecution of  the  undertaking  to  collaborators  whose 
finished  product  he  approved ;  he  also  made  use  of  older 
sources,  whether  written  documents  or  oral  traditions, 
wherever  necessary;  it  is  also  conceded  that  additions 
and  slight  alterations  crept  in  during  its  further  course 
of  transmission. 


THE  UNTRADITIONAL  VIEW 49 

But  even  in  Protestant  circles 
Present-Day  Status   ,        ,       ,  ,  ..  .         , 

*  ~  ...  .  there  has  been  a  shifting  of  po- 

of Criticism  .  .        , ..     , 

sitions.  Much  greater  stress  is  now 

laid  on  the  stage  of  oral  transmission  which  preceded 
the  written  documents;  their  process  of  development 
is  shown  to  have  been  a  protracted  one,  so  that  in  their 
beginnings  they  mount  up  quite  close  to  the  times  and 
conditions  of  which  they  tell.  By  using  to  advantage 
our  more  extented  knowledge  of  the  ancient  Orient  it 
is  possible  to  show  how  whole  circles  of  ideas  which 
used  to  be  placed  in  post-exilic  times  belong  to  the  very 
earliest  epochs  in  the  life  of  the  nation.  At  no  time 
was  Palestine  isolated  from  contact  with  the  great 
world  beyond,  and  the  Mosaic  times,  nay  even  the  age 
of  the  patriarchs,  reveal  themselves  as  periods  when 
East  and  West  left  their  cultural  deposits  in  the  soil  on 
which  Abraham  and  Moses  trod.  We  cannot  now,  as 
was  at  one  time  the  vogue,  discuss  seriously  whether 
the  art  of  writing  was  known  in  the  Mosaic  times.  We 
know  of  the  code  of  laws  promulgated  by  a 
Babylonian  king  (Hammurapi)  nearly  eight  centuries 
earlier.  Moreover,  the  whole  of  the  resolution  of  the 
Pentateuch  into  its  documents  as  developed  by  the 
critical  school  has  within  recent  years  suffered  a  set- 
back, and  at  this  moment  this  as  many  another 
question  in  the  criticism  of  the  Scriptures  may  be  said 
to  have  been  re-opened. 


60 THE  SCRIPTURES  IN  THE  MAKING 

-,.  The  nineteenth  century  witnessed 

The  Attitude  of     ,  ,   ,  T      .      , 

T      •  v.  c  Vi  i        tne  nse  °*  t"e  newer  Jewish  learning 
I  e wisn.  v-iCiiOicirs     ....      .  .      .     , 

which  is  characterized  by  explora- 
tions in  the  whole  range  of  Jewish  antiquity  along 
historical  and  critical  times.  Zunz,  who  with  Rapo- 
port  opened  the  new  era,  began  and  concluded  his 
literary  career  with  short  studies  in  the  scriptural 
field.  The  Book  of  Ezekiel  was  to  him  a  work  produced 
in  times  subsequent  to  Ezra;  the  third  book  of  the 
Torah,  Leviticus,  he  considered  to  be  of  a  still  later 
period,  and  the  earliest  evidence  of  the  existence  of  the 
complete  Pentateuch  he  placed  some  three  centuries 
after  Josiah.  These  extravagant  notions,  the  proof  for 
which  was  presented  in  a  summary,  almost  laconic, 
manner  were  repudiated  by  Geiger.  Much  as  Geiger 
had  broken  with  the  authority  of  the  Torah  in  prac- 
tice, he  maintained  the  priority  of  Leviticus  as  com- 
pared with  Deuteronomy,  although  he  conceded  late, 
post-exilic  accretions  in  the  third  book  of  the  Torah. 
Yet  Kalisch  in  England  was  moving  in  the  line  of  the 
'advanced'  position  quite  ahead  of  Wellhausen;  but 
Kalisch  stood  somewhat  aside  from  the  main  current 
of  the  Jewish  learning  of  his  age.  In  Italy,  Luzzatto, 
the  foremost  Jewish  student  of  the  Scriptures  in  the 
nineteenth  century,  would  not  so  much  as  admit  that 
the  second  half  of  Isaiah  was  not  from  the  pen  of  Isaiah 
the  contemporary  of  Hezekiah.  Graetz,  the  historian 
of  the  Jewish  people,  had  no  scruples  about  placing 
Koheleth  in  the  time  of  Herod  and  several  Psalms  in 


THE  UNTRADITIONAL  VIEW 51 

Maccabean  and  even  post-Maccabean  times.  Kroch- 
mal  likewise  had  conceded  the  Maccabean  date  of 
certain  Psalms  and  developed  the  idea  that  Koheleth 
was  the  last  written  book,  its  concluding  verses  being 
the  collector's  epilogue  to  the  entire  body  of  Scriptures. 
The  pentateuchal  question,  which  Krochmal  had  not 
treated  at  all,  was  disposed  of  by  Graetz  in  a  few  pages 
and  later  on  in  a  brief  essay.  He  resolutely  brushed 
aside  the  dominant  Protestant  theory  as  developed 
by  Wellhausen.  According  to  Graetz,  the  first  four 
books  were  in  existence  under  king  Ahaz,  the  various 
legislative  parts  having  been  publicly  promulgated 
under  Joash  and  Uzziah.  The  Book  found  in  the 
Temple  was  Deuteronomy,  thus  completing  the  Pen- 
tateuch. The  trend  of  the  labors  of  the  whole  of  the 
'historical  school',  as  Schechter  so  well  recognized,  was 
to  steer  clear  of  the  Scriptures  and  to  concentrate 
instead  upon  a  study  of  the  post-biblical  literature  and 
history  and  to  exalt  the  free  spoken  word  as  it  kept 
touch  with  the  religious  needs  of  each  age  above  the 
written  word.  Schechter  himself  pleaded  for  a  renewed 
study  of  the  Scriptures  on  the  part  of  Jewish  scholars, 
from  the  point  of  view  of  a  'Jewish  liberalism'.  It 
cannot  be  said  that  there  is  to-day  a  corporate  expres- 
sion of  Jewish  liberal  opinion  on  the  critical  questions 
presented  by  the  Scriptures.  Yet  it  must  not  be  forgotten 
that,  as  the  author  of  the  'Guide  for  the  Perplexed  of 
our  Times'  rightly  points  out,  each  age  has  its  methods 
of  dealing  with  questions  affecting  the  Scriptures.  'To 


52  THE  SCRIPTURES  IN  THE  MAKING 

say  with  the  ancients  that  David  penned  prophetically 
Psalm  137  ('By  the  rivers  of  Babylon')  will  not  produce 
in  modern  minds  the  same  emotions  of  hope  and  trust 
and  faith;  but  the  same  effect  will  be  produced  when 
our  younger  generation  is  made  to  see  the  depth  of 
affection  for  country,  nation,and  God  which  animated 
that  Levitical  singer  as  he  was  carried  away  captive 
to  a  foreign  land  and  vowed  that  he  would  not  forget 
the  ancient  home.' 

Tradition,  or  that  which  passes  for 
Tradition  and  .          ,  TT         ,.  .          ,  .  ,  ,       , 

_  .A.  .  it,  and  Untradition,  which  goes  by  the 

Criticism  .....  ... 

name  ot  criticism,  are  quite  tar  apart 

in  their  results.  But  in  one  respect  they  seem  to  be  at 
one.  Both  know  by  whom  and  when  every  book  of  the 
Scriptures,  nay,  every  chapter  and  verse  and  every 
infinitesimal  bit  of  the  sacred  text,  was  written ;  they 
know  also  the  sequence  of  the  writings  in  the  process 
of  public  recognition.  Tradition  may  be  shown  to  rest 
upon  scriptural  data,  perhaps  imperfectly  understood, 
and  therefore  to  constitute  a  mere  opinion ;  Untradition 
operates  with  evidence  likewise  derived  from  the 
Scriptures,  possibly  more  successfully  apprehended, 
and  tends  to  be  hardened  into  a  tradition  of  the  critical 
school  unquestioned  by  its  followers.  True  criticism 
will  bend  before  no  opinion  whether  ancient  or  modern ; 
it  recognizes  no  master  but  that  tradition  which  when 
all  is  said  and  done  is  found  to  be  based  not  on  opinion, 
but  on  fact.  There  is  no  other  approach  to  antiquity 
except  through  tradition.  The  road  is  beset  with 


THE  UNTRADITIONAL  VIEW 53 

difficulties  which  no  earnest  student  can  afford  to 
minimize,  and  the  injection  of  a  measure  of  'learned 
ignorance'  will  at  least  save  us  from  that  dogmatic 
assurance  which  clings  to  traditionalists  and  untra- 
ditionalists  alike.  The  data  are  scanty  and  not  always 
unambiguous;  a  point  here  and  a  point  there  may  be 
firmly  held,  but  the  connecting  line  must  needs  be 
drawn  by  our  own  hand. 

A  HT           •«••  x  A  clear  insight  will  show  that  the 

A  Newer  Method  ,. 

.  4  ,  lines  do  not  always  run  straight; 

of  Approach  ,  , ,       , 

they  waver  and  break  and  go  to  and 

fro  and  up  and  down ;  there  is  much  intertwining  and 
interlacing.  Indeed  the  process  of  Scripture  making 
will  reveal  itself  not  as  one  of  consecutive  addition  of 
a  second  category  after  the  first  was  well  established 
and  of  a  third  when  the  second  had  been  joined  on  to 
the  first,  but  rather  as  one  of  consecutive  enlargement 
within  the  three  parts,  all  of  which  co-existed  from  the 
very  beginning,  and  each  of  which,  whatever  its  com- 
pass for  the  time  being,  remained  identical  in  its 
character  throughout  the  whole  of  the  formative 
period. 


CHAPTER  IV 
TORAH,  WORD,  AND  WISDOM 


TheTripartition     ™e  triPart|tion  of  ^ly  Writ  as 
.     .     ,  traditionally  given  has  been  traced  to 

the  second  century  B.C.E.  (chapter  I). 
But  it  mounts  up  much  higher.  When  Ezekiel  (7.26) 
describes  the  consternation  of  the  people  as  the  end, 
the  national  catastrophe,  approaches,  he  represents 
them  as  seeking  in  vain  a  Vision'  at  the  hands  of  the 
prophet,  the  priests  at  a  loss  to  furnish  torah  ,  and  the 
elders  unable  to  offer  counsel.  Jeremiah's  antagonists 
meet  his  predictions  of  evil  defiantly  with  the  as- 
surance that  there  will  be  torah  forthcoming  from  the 
priest,  and  the  'word'  from  the  prophet,  and  'counsel* 
from  the  wise  man  (Jeremiah  18.18). 

_  .  ,    „,  Accordingly,  the  people,  in  their  per- 

Triple  Source     ,     .          .     V      •          •       i       .        . 
,  P       .    .       plexity,  whether  in  national  or  in  pri- 

vate affairs,  have  at  their  disposal  a 
triple  means  of  lifting  the  veil,  of  obtaining  enlighten- 
ment, of  ascertaining  the  will  and  purpose  of  the  Deity  ; 
hence,  a  triple  source  of  revelation.  Jehoshaphat,  on 
the  eve  of  the  campaign  against  the  Arameans  at  Ra- 
moth  (I  Kings  22.5),  or  the  expedition  against  Moab 
(II  Kings  3.11)  ;  Josiah,  when  confronted  with  the  con- 
sequences of  the  long  disobedience  of  the  Law  of  Moses 
now  recovered  (22.13)  ;  Zedekiah,  battling  against  the 


TORAH,  WORD,  AND  WISDOM 55 

invading  foe  and  uncertain  as  to  the  efficacy  of  Egyp- 
tian succor  (Jeremiah  21. 2;  37. 7);  Rebekah,  wishing 
to  know  what  the  struggle  of  her  sons  within  her  por- 
tends (Genesis  25.22);  any  person  on  an  errand  like 
Saul's  (I  Samuel  9.9),  or  litigants  unable  to  compose 
their  differences  (Exodus  18.15) — they  all  are  eager  to 
'seek'  or  'inquire  of  God  through  the  instrumentality 
of  his  agents,  whether  prophets  or  priests.  Both  were 
to  be  found  in  or  near  the  sanctuaries;  thither  the 
people  resorted  on  sabbaths  and  new  moons  (II  Kings 
4.23)  and  fast-days  (Jeremiah  36.6),  and  there  they 
asked  to  be  instructed  in  the  ways  of  the  Lord  and  His 
righteous  ordinances  (Isaiah  58.2). 
T  .  lor  ah  is  used  preeminently  of  the  priest's 
instruction.  Naturally  the  priests  would  be  con- 
sidered experts  in  ritual  matters  pertaining  to  the 
distinction  between  holy  and  common,  clean  and  un- 
clean (Leviticus  11.10;  Ezekiel  44.23).  The  prophet 

OM.  TJM.  i  H*  u  Haggai  asks  of  the  priests  a  de- 
The  Ritual  Torah  ...  ,*_,.  ..  ,  , 

cision  in  a  matter  of  this  kind ;  he 

asks  of  themtorah.  'If  one  bear  hallowed  flesh  in  the 
skirt  of  his  garment,  and  with  his  skirt  do  touch  bread, 
or  pottage  or  wine,  or  oil,  or  any  food,  shall  it  become 
holy?'  The  answer  is:  No.  'If  one  that  is  unclean  by  a 
dead  body  touch  any  of  these,  shall  it  be  unclean?' 
Yes,  the  priests  reply  (Haggai  2.11-13).  The  subjects 
fall  within  the  province  of  the  great  body  of  legislation 
in  Leviticus  with  its  larger  and  smaller  sections  each 
designated  at  the  head  or  at  the  bottom  as  a  tor  ah: 


66  THE  SCRIPTURES  IN  THE  MAKING 

This  is  the  torah  of  (i.e.  dealing  with)  the  burnt-offer- 
ing, or  the  sin-offering;  this  is  the  torah  of  the  animals 
that  may  be  eaten  and  may  not  be  eaten ;  of  the  woman 
giving  birth  to  a  child ;  of  the  leper ;  and  so  on. 

But  the  priest  is  also  judge   (Eze- 
Legal  Decrees     ,  .  ,  ..  (MXrTT    ^  . 

Kiel  44.24);  the  Deuteronomic  legis- 
lation makes  provision  for  local  courts  and  for  the 
highest  court  of  appeals  at  the  central  sanctuary,  with 
the  priests  as  the  predominating  element  (Deutero- 
nomy!7.8-13;  II  Chronicles  19.5-11).  The  legal  decree, 
or  'judgment',  is  called  torah',  the  sum  of  the  legislation 
in  chapters  21  and  22  of  Exodus  is  designated  as 
'judgments'  (21.1;  24.3).  To  the  priest  the  husband 
takes  his  wife  suspected  of  infidelity  (Numbers  5.15) ; 
in  the  presence  of  the  priest  men  and  women  poured 

T  •»»  A.  £  out  their  soul  before  God  (I  Samuel  1. 
In  Matters  of  .  .  ,  ,.  ,  .. 

~        .  15);  it  was  for  him  to  hold  persons  to 

Conscience          '.  ,         .    .      ,.  f      , 

their  vows  and  to  their  plighted  word 

(Deuteronomy  23.24;  see  Numbers  30.2-17),  and  he 
received  confessions  (Leviticus  5.5;  Numbers  5.7). 
He  was  accounted  the  messenger  of  the  Lord: at  his 
mouth  the  people  sought  torah,  and  he  turned  away 
many  from  sin  (Malachi  2.6,  7). 

Ministering  at  the  sanctuary,  blessing  the  people, 
and  teaching  torah  constituted  the  priest's  activity 

(Deuteronomy    10.8;    33.10). 

Torah  Comprehensive    :.         •  i.  //*  o\          i       r    i_ 
.    .     __       .  Jeremiah  (2.8)  speaks  of  the 

priests  as  'those  that  handle 
the  Torah';  and  Hosea  (4.6)  upbraids  those  of  his  day 


TORAH,  WORD,  AND  WISDOM 57 

as  derelict  in  their  duty  of  communicating  the 
knowledge  of  God  to  the  people.  Into  the  priest's  keeping 
was  placed  the  sum  of  instruction  for  any  and  every 
emergency  in  the  life  of  the  nation  and  in  that  of  the 
individual,  the  whole  of  the  Torah  of  God,  just  as  it 
was  he  who,  in  possession  of  the  Light  and  Truth 
(Urim  and  Thummim),  was  consulted  in  all  weighty 
matters  of  state  by  Saul  and  David  (I  Samuel  14.36; 
23.2  and  elsewhere),  and  their  trials  and  afflictions 
were  cheerfully  borne  by  the  ephod-clad  minister  of 
God  (I  Kings  2.26). 

Just  as  the  Torah  was  the  priest's,  so 
The 'Vision'     .  J  ,  .  .     ,        .     ,        ,,        *       .   ' 

,_...     , ,        the  vision  or  the  word  was  the  proph- 
or  'Word  D      ,  ,      .    .,  •  » A 

et  s.    Prophecy  and  priesthood  might  be 

united  in  one  and  the  same  person,  as  in  the  case  of 
Jeremiah  and  Ezekiel,  and  for  that  matter  Moses,  who 
officiated  at  the  ordination  of  Aaron  and  his  sons 
(Leviticus  8).  In  early  times  the  two  functions  were 
probably  indistinguishable.  Yet  a  differentiation  set 
in  when  each  reached  its  full  growth.  In  the  main  the 
priest  was  concerned  with  the  ordinary  business  of  life 
which  is  much  the  same  at  all  times  and  partakes  of 

_.  .  routine,     and    he    was    hedged     in    by 

Priest  and  ,         TU  j    it  -Ji 

_,      .  precedent.   The  prophet  dealt  more  with 

Prophet  .         ..u       • 

emergencies,  with  unique  situations,  and 

his  message  is  rooted  in  all  the  attendant  circumstances 
of  his  day,  forceful  to  the  extent  that  it  is  impulsive. 
Soberness  marks  the  priest.  The  prophet  walks  in  a 
trance  during  which  he  receives  his  Visions' 


68  THE  SCRIPTURES  IN  THE  MAKING 

and  'auditions';  his  realm  is  the  subconscious,  and 
his  enthusiasm  borders  on  the  pathological.  The  hand 
of  God  rests  heavy  on  him  (Isaiah  8.11 ;  Ezekiel  3.14) ; 
the  spirit  carries  him  hither  and  thither  (I  Kings  18. 
12;  Ezekiel  3.14  and  elsewhere);  he  is  powerless  to 
resist  the  inward  impulse,  shut  up  in  his  bones  like  a 
consuming  fire  (Jeremiah  20.9) ;  he  loves  solitude  (15. 
17)  and  affects  the  bizarre;  he  not  only  speaks  the 
word,  but  acts  it  out  (Isaiah  20.2;  Jeremiah  27.2; 
Ezekiel  24.24)  ;  he  is  accounted  a  madman  (Hosea  9. 
7).  He  is  always  in  conflict  with  the  present  order  of 
things ;  compromise,  half-way  measures  are  not  to  his 
liking;  in  his  one-sided  accentuation  of  the  ideal  con- 
sists his  greatness.  Opposition  he  condemns  as  stub- 
bornness; the  nation  if  it  is  to  be  saved  must  retrace 
its  steps,  'return',  that  is,  repent,  and  the  heart  of 
stone  must  be  converted  into  a  heart  of  flesh  (Ezekiel 
11.19),  become  receptive  instead  of  obdurate.  Like 
the  priests,  the  prophets  sometimes  live  in  conventic- 
les, surrounded  by  younger  disciples,  'sons  of  the 
prophets'  (I  Kings  20.35) ;  but  they  form  no  hereditary 
caste;  and  the  true  prophet,  like  Amos,  refuses  to  be 
identified  with  guild-members;  he  is  an  individualist. 

~     -,.  Prophets    and    priests     look 

Conflict  between  .  ,      ,;       , 

_      .  ,  ._,  .     .    askance  at  each  other ;  the  priest 

Prophets  and  Pnests  , 

would  regulate  prophecy  and  as- 
sume jurisdiction  over  the  prophet;  witness  the  en- 
counter between  Amos  and  Amaziah  the  priest  of 
Bethel,  and  Jeremiah  and  Pashhur  the  priest  of  Jeru- 


TORAH,  WORD,  AND  WISDOM 59 

salem  (Amos  6.10;  Jeremiah  20,  1).  The  priest  has  on 
his  side  the  constituted  authorities  and  the  Torah. 
The  prophet  speaks  out  with  courage  (Micah  3.8)  and 
over  against  the  priestly  Torah  in  which  ritual  matters 
are  intermixed  with  moral  injunctions  he  proclaims 
as  all-sufficient  the  prophetic  sum  of  moral  duty.  To 
that  he  of  a  set  purpose  applies  the  sacerdotal  term 
Torah  (Isaiah  1.10;  Jeremiah  6.19).  To  the  prophet's 
mind  the  divine  Law  could  not  concern  itself  with  the 
sacrificial  worship;  the  duties  which  it  inculcated 
dealt  rather  with  social  justice  and  might  be  summed 
up  most  briefly  in  'doing  justice,  loving  mercy,  and 
walking  humbly  with  God' — not  showily,  by  the  dis- 
play of  calves  and  rams  and  rivers  of  oil,  such  as  the 
priests  commanded,  and  the  exaggerated  piety  of 
surrendering  one's  first-born  (Micah  6.6-8).  In  short, 
the  prophet  accused  the  priests  of  falsifying  the  Torah 
of  God  (Jeremiah  7.31) ;  at  best  they  could  only  main- 
tain that  the  objectionable  laws  were  given  by  the 
Deity  for  the  express  purpose  of  destroying  the  wicked 
people  (Ezekiel  20.25,  26).  A  new  covenant  would 
supersede  the  old  covenant  of  the  exodus,  when  the 
Torah  would  be  written  in  the  people's  heart  and  the 
knowledge  of  the  Lord  be  taught  no  more,  for  all  will 
know  Him  (Jeremiah  31.  33,  34). 

-„     «.  ,    ,  Not  only  did  prophets  and 

Conflicts  between  .  / 

r»      i.  j  T>_    L       priests     often    oppose    each 

Prophets  and  Prophets     ,       ,  , 

other ;  but  prophets  and  proph- 
ets likewise  clashed.    Micah  inveighs  against  those 


60  THE  SCRIPTURES  IN  THE  MAKING 

easy-going  preachers  who  talk  of  wine  and  strong  drink 
and  delude  the  people  by  their  optimistic  messages  of 
peace.  Jeremiah  and  Ezekiel  are  constantly  at  odds 
with  these  'false'  prophets.  A  classic  example  is  af- 
forded by  the  encounter  between  Jeremiah  and  Han- 
aniah  (Jeremiah  28).  They  categorically  contradict 
each  other  and  each  accuses  the  other  of  tampering 
with  the  truth.  To  Hananiah's  mind  Jeremiah  was 
the  'false  prophet'.  But  history  confirmed  Jeremiah 
to  have  been  in  the  right. 

_   . There  were  also  differences  be- 

Between  Priests  .  ,  „,, 

.  _.  .  tween  priests  and  priests.    When 

and  Priests  . 

there  was  no  king  in  Israel,  and 

every  man  did  that  which  was  right  (see  Deuteronomy 
12.8)  in  his  own  eyes',  a  Levitical  priesthood,  tracing 
its  ancestry  to  Moses,  maintained  itself  in  Dan  in 
rivalry  with  Shiloh,  and  this  Danite  sanctuary  was 
equipped  with  a  molten  image  wrought  by  the  gold- 
smith (Judges  17  and  18).  The  'royal  sanctuary'  at 
Bethel  similarly  possessed  a  golden  calf,  \  i.  e.  the  image 
of  a  young  bull,  the  symbol  of  Joseph's  strength  (I 
Kings  12.28;  Hosea  8.5,  6;  Deuteronomy  33.17).  The 
priesthood  of  Shiloh,  of  whom  Eli  was  a  worthy  repre- 
sentative, was  set  aside  by  Solomon,  who  raised  up  the 
branch  of  Zadok  to  minister  at  the  new  Temple  at 
Jerusalem  (I  Samuel  2.35;  I  Kings  2.27).  The  Elide 
Abiathar  had  sided  with  Adonijah,  while  Zadok  sup- 
ported the  claims  of  Solomon  and  was  abetted  by  the 
prophet  Nathan  (I  Kings  1.7,  45).  The  Elides,  thrust 


TORAH,  WORD,  AND  WISDOM 61 

out  from  the  Temple  in  the  capital,  attached  them- 
selves to  the  'high  places'  in  the  country  towns,  and 
when  these  were  abolished,  they  were  degraded  to  the 
ranks  of  lower  service  in  the  central  sanctuary  (I  Sam- 
uel 2.36;  Ezekiel  44.10-14).  Thus  priests  who  favored 
image  worship  opposed  those  who  proscribed  images ; 
Levites  holding  to  a  plurality  of  sanctuaries  were  in 
conflict  with  the  centralizing  priests-Levites  belonging 
to  the  Zadokite  family.  In  the  rebellion  of  Korah 
against  Aaron  (Numbers  16)  and  in  Aaron's  own  par- 
ticipation in  the  worship  of  the  golden  calf  (Exodus 
32)  we  have  echoes  of  struggles  which  ascend  into 
Mosaic  times. 

And,  lastly,  'counsel'  was  sought  at  the  hands  of  the 

„...  wise  man,  or  of  the  wise  woman.    The  gift 

Wisdom      ,    .   ,          .  ,  . ,     ,       , . 

of  wisdom  might  be  found  in  man  or  woman, 

just  as  we  find  prophetesses  of  acknowledged  author- 
ity by  the  side  of  prophets.  As  'king'  in  Hebrew  de- 
noted originally  the  'counsellor',  and  the  scriptural 
'judge',  like  his  Carthaginian  counterpart,  was  the 
highest  magistrate,  there  were  at  times  women  judges 
and  queens  regnant.  (It  is  characteristic  that  the 
Scriptures  know  of  no  'priestesses',  such  as  the  Phoe- 
nicians, for  example,  had.)  Now  counsel  or  wisdom 
might  be  sought  by  the  individual  in  his  daily  affairs 
when  a  specially  complicated  or  knotty  question 
presented  itself,  or  by  the  nation  and  its  representa- 
tives in  a  grave  crisis.  Men  of  low  station  would  turn 
to  tried  friends  of  their  own  or  of  their  families,  and 


62  THE  SCRIPTURES  IN  THE  MAKING 

kings  and  dignitaries  of  state  surrounded  themselves 
with  competent  advisers. 

Wisdom,  like  our  science  of  which 
The  Precursor   .    .    A,  .    ,    ..^ 

,  0  .  it  is  the  precursor,  is  built  upon  ex- 

of  Science  .  ,     , 

penence,   upon   shrewd   observation; 

naturally  it  was  looked  for  in  persons  of  ripe  years,  in 
the  'elders'.  The  young  are  the  inexperienced,  heed- 
less of  peril,  thoughtless  of  consequences;  the  elders 
know  beforehand  what  the  issue  will  be  and  are  fore- 
warned by  their  vision  ahead.  They  are  able  to  cite 
precedent ;  the  accumulated  wisdom  of  generations  is 
in  their  possession ;  they  have  their  lore,  'which  wise 
men  have  told  from  their  fathers,  and  have  not  hid  it* 
(Job  15.18).  'For  we  are  but  of  yesterday,  and  know 
nothing' ;  it  is  therefore  fitting  that  one  should  'inquire' 
of  the  former  generation,  so  as  to  possess  oneself  of 
'that  which  the  fathers  have  searched  out'  (8.8,  9). 

This  traditional  lore  takes  on  the  form  of  wordly- 
wise  maxims,  pithy,  sententious,  replete  with  wit  and 
humor,  indulging  in  genial  banter  or  bitter  sarcasm, 
with  a  bent  for  detecting  likenesses  or  contrasts,  with 
the  entire  realm  of  human  and  animal  action  to  choose 

.  from.  It  is  the  'mashal',  at  once  proverb, 
The  Mashal  , ,      ,  .,          .  ,    „    ,    c 

parable,  fable,  and  ballad,  figurative 

speech  and  dark  saying,  riddle-like  and  enigmatic, 
didactic  poem  and  speculative  discourse,  simple  in 
its  beginnings  so  as  to  be  comprised  within  the  com- 
pass of  a  sentence  or  two,  yet  at  the  height  of  its  per- 
fection making  up  so  complex  a  dramatic  work  as  Job. 


TORAH,  WORD,  AND  WISDOM 63 

The  'mashal',  particularly  the  short  one,  travelled 
from  mouth  to  mouth,  from  nation  to  nation;  it  was 

international.        Furthermore,    the 
International       ,       ,    .,     ,     ,       . 

j  TTj.M'4    •          mashal  ,  whether  it  pertains  to  the 
and  Utilitarian  f       .,..,,         e 

government  of  an  individual  or  of  a 

nation,  whether  it  teaches  the  rules  of  husbandry 
(Isaiah  28.29)or  the  conduct  of  warfare  (36.5 ;  Proverbs 
20.  18),  has  a  touch  of  the  practical,  its  morality 
is  utilitarian — it  pays  to  be  honest,  thoughtful /kind — 
and  its  outlook  upon  life  is  tinctured  with  scepticism. 
The  sententious  remark  of  the  wise  woman  of  Tekoa, 
Tor  we  must  needs  die,  and  are  as  water  spilt  on  the 
ground,  which  cannot  be  gathered  up  again'  (II  Samuel 
14.14),  has  in  it  embryonically  the  philosophy  of  Ko- 
heleth  who  with  the  shrug  of  a  shoulder  wonders: 
'Who  knoweth  whether  the  spirit  of  man  goeth  upward 
and  the  spirit  of  the  beast  goeth  downward  to  the 
earth?'  (Ecclesiastes  3.21). 

-.T.  ~  Wisdom  arrogated  to  itself  an 

Wisdom  Competes    .  ...  , 

...  _      .  inerrancy     not    unlike   that    of 

with  Prophecy  u     *     «XT     ,  *t  i     c 

prophecy.      Now  the  counsel  of 

Ahithophel,  which  he  counselled  in  those  days,  was  as 
if  a  man  inquired  of  the  word  of  God'  (I I  Samuel  16.23). 
It  welled  up  from  the  depths  of  the  'heart',  which  is 
the  Hebrew  for  'mind',  exactly  as  the  prophetic  word 
came  from  the  'heart',  filling  it  like  a  burning  fire.  Like 
the  enthusiasm  of  the  prophet,  the  flashes  of  wisdom, 
no  less  than  the  skill  and  talent  of  the  artist  craftsman 
(Exodus  31.3),  proceeded  from  the  'spirit':  'surely  it 


64  THE  SCRIPTURES  IN  THE  MAKING 

is  a  spirit  in  man,  and  the  breath  of  the  Almighty  that 
giveth  them  understanding'  (Job  32.8).  The  wise  man 
has  a  religion  of  his  own;  somewhat  like  the 
philosophers  who  speak  of  'world-soul'  or  'supreme 
intelligence',  he  operates  with  'Almighty'  and  'God' 
— universal  appellations  which  antedate  the  Mosaic 
revelation — and  'Elohim*  means  just  as  much  to 
Koheleth  as  'Deus'  does  to  Spinoza.  Wisdom 
_.  _.  .  __..  ,  is  more  than  a  body  of  rules  for 
the  regulation  of  human  conduct. 
There  is  a  higher  Wisdom  which  is  tantamount  to  the 
formula  of  the  universe,  the  secret  of  which  God 
has  reserved  for  Himself ;  it  had  pre-mundane  existence, 
it  was  the  first  of  God's  works,  'from  everlasting,  from 
the  beginning,  or  ever  the  earth  was'  (Proverbs  8.22- 
30). 

_  But  wisdom  competes  not 

Wisdom  also  Competes       .       .  ,          ,         ,       „ 

•*u  4.1.    T>  •    11    £     u    OI"y  Wltn  prophecy  (see  Ec- 
with  the  Priest's  Torah     ,    .      .     %.  ,,.  '      . 

clesiasticus  24.33) ;  it  also  as- 
sumes for  its  teaching  the  priestly  term  torah  (Proverbs 
3.1  and  frequently).  It  has  its  own  set  of  'command- 
ments' ;  it  would  have  them,  like  the  words  of  the  Torah 
(Deuteronomy  6.6,  8,  9),  written  upon  tablets  bound 
on  the  neck  and  resting  against  the  heart. 

HM-    ^t.  »«•  j.      The  challenge  of  the  wise  men 

The  Challenge  Met  .  ,  ,  . 

was  met  by  prophet  and  priest. 

Masters  of  the  literary  art  as  the  prophets  were,  they 
showed  themselves  on  occasion  adepts  in  the  lore  of  the 
wise  whose  very  language  they  imitated  (Isaiah  29.24), 


TORAH,  WORD,  AND  WISDOM 65 

and  the  'ballad-mongers'of  Jerusalem  were  to  them  an 
object  of  scorn  (28.14).  The  Lawgiver  pointedly 
makes  claim  that  the  Torah  is  the  sum  of  Israel's 
'wisdom  and  understanding' ;  as  such  it  is  self-sufficient, 
there  is  nothing  to  add  and  nothing  to  diminish  (Deu- 
teronomy 4.2,  6). 

On  the  other  hand,  Hebrew  wisdom 
Rationalism  ,     ,        ,    .         ,  ,         , 

~. ,  ,    was  far  from  being   the  product  of  one- 

Side-tracked      .,    ,       ..       ,.          lirfT    ,,       ~      . 
sided  rationalism.    With  the  Greeks 

rationalism  developed  into  ruthless  logic  and  pure 
science.  Religion  was  subordinated  to  philosophy, 
and  the  Olympian  gods  were  ruled  out  of  existence  by 
the  dialectics  of  the  'sophists',  the  teachers  of  wisdom. 
There  was  just  a  tendency  towards  secularism  in  Is- 
rael, but  it  was  nipped  in  the  bud  by  prophecy.  'Lean 
not  unto  thine  own  understanding'  (Proverbs  3.5). 
That  precludes  scientific  investigation.  'The  begin- 
ning of  wisdom  is  the  fear  of  the  Lord'.  That  means 
that  philosophy  is  the  handmaid  of  religion.  This 
check  upon  self-sufficient  wisdom,  however,  must  not 
be  conceived  as  introduced  at  a  late  date.  Hebrew 
wisdom,  as  it  went  hand  in  hand  with  prophecy,  was 
impregnated  with  the  religious  spirit  which  provided 
the  corrective  where  there  was  any  inclination  to  un- 
bounded rationalism. 

An  offshoot  of  the  'mashal'  was  the 
The  Song  ,   „,,    .  , . 

song  .  The  inarticulate  expressions  of  joy 

over  the  harvest  (Isaiah  9. 2), the  shouts  of  the  vintners 
in  the  vineyards  (16.10),  the  acclaim  of  a  new  king  (I 


66  THE  SCRIPTURES  IN  THE  MAKING 

Kings  1.40)  or  of  a  returning  hero  (Judges  11.25),  all 
these  formed  themselves  into  songs  accompanied  by 
music  and  dancing.  There  were  songs  at  banquets, 
when  wine  was  freely  imbibed  (Isaiah  5.12;  24.  8,  9), 
among  the  young  men  as  they  gathered  together 
(Lamentations  5.14),  among  the  maidens  in  their 
dances  (Jeremiah  31.12;  see  Exodus  15.  20,  21),  or 
when  the  daughter  went  forth  from  her  father's  house 
to  follow  her  newly  wedded  husband  (Genesis  31.27); 
and  there  were  professional  singers  of  both  sexes  (II 
Samuel  19.36;  Ecclesiastes  2.8).  The  gifted  singer,  the 
minstrel,  the  poet,  as  he  moved  his  hearers,  was  him- 
self moved  by  the  touch  of  the  divine  afflatus,  he  was 
inspired, 'the  spirit  of  the  Lord  spoke  by  him,  and  His 
word  was  upon  his  tongue'  (II  Samuel  23.2).  As  it 
goes  with  the  operations  of  the  spirit,  no  set  of  emo- 
tions is  released  but  it  affects  the  whole  of  the  inner 
man.  Music  and  prophecy  go  together  (I  Samuel  10. 
5) ;  as  the  minstrel  plays,  the  hand  of  God  comes  upon 
Elisha  (II  Kings  3.15);  Ezekiel  complains  that  the 
people  ignore  his  stern  admonitions  and  have  an  ear 
only  for  his  pleasing  voice  and  minstrelsy  (Ezekiel 
33.32). 

There  were  songs  having  for  their  subject 
Ballads  ,  .       ,.    .  ,    ,  .       . 

the  exploits  of  the  heroes  of  the  nation  in 

the  Wars  of  the  Lord,  when  'the sun  stood  still,  and  the 
moon  stayed,  until  the  nation  had  avenged  them- 
selves of  their  enemies'  (Joshua  10.13) ;  when  'the  stars 
in  their  courses  fought,  and  from  heaven  the  Lord 


TORAH,  WORD,  AND  WISDOM 67 

wrought  acts  of  victory'  (Judges  5.11,  13,  20).  There 
were  ballad-singers,  reciters  of  'mashals'  (Numbers  21. 
27),  who  in  mock  pity  taunted  the  defeated  foe. 
Story-telling  in  Israel  was  not  suffered  to  remain  an 
idle  pursuit  for  the  purpose  of  entertainment.  In  the 
mouth  of  a  gifted  bard  it  assumed  a  didactic  tone,  it 
was  designed  to  teach  a  lesson,  it'  was  tor  ah  and 
mashal,  'sententious  sayings  concerning  days  of  old, 
which  the  fathers  told,  that  the  generation  to  come 
might  know,  even  the  children  that  should  be  born, 
who  should  arise  and  tell  them  to  their  children,  that 
they  might  put  their  confidence  in  God,  and  not  for- 
get the  works  of  God'  (Psalm  78.1-7).  Thus  the 
prophets,  after  the  wont  of  preachers,  wove  the  stories 
of  the  past  into  their  discourses  in  order  to  drive  home 
a  lesson,  to  contrast  with  the  idealized  past  the  ignoble 
present.  The  prophetic  literature  abounds  in  examples, 
and  the  oldest  of  the  'writing'  prophets,  Hosea  for 
example,  introduces  in  measured  lines  many  a  saw 
from  the  hoary  past.  Song  everywhere  precedes 
prose;  midway  stands  the  long  oration,  masterly  in  its 
lofty  diction  and  stately  periods,  whose  theme  is 
exhortation  and  in  which  the  remembrance  of  incid- 
ents in  antiquity  leads  to  the  peroration  with  its 
persuasive  appeal  to  the  immediate  audience:  'And 
now,  Israel,  what  doth  the  Lord  require  of  thee?'  At 
the  home,  at  the  shrines,  the  children  were  wont  to 
ask  questions:  'What  is  this?  what  mean  ye  by  this 
service?';  and  the  answers  given  dilated  circumstan- 


68  THE  SCRIPTURES  IN  THE  MAKING 

tially  upon  the  wondrous  deeds  of  the  Lord  from  the 
beginnings,  when  He  made  Israel  His  own  at  the  time 
when  He  delivered  the  fathers  from  the  land  of  Egypt, 
from  the  house  of  bondage,  through  the  succeeding 
generations,  when  He  sent  them  a  deliverer  in  all  their 
troubles.  There  were  cycles  of  prose  narrative  which 
naturally  increased  with  each  period. 

_.      .„           ,  T  The  'song  of  loves',  the  epi- 

The  Song  of  Loves    ^,    .  K , 

thalamium    on  the  occasion  of 

the  nuptials  of  a  king — most  probably  Ahab — to  a 
Tyrian  princess,  which  we  read  now  as  Psalm  45,  was 
certainly  not  the  only  one  of  its  kind.  The  prophet 
Isaiah  prefaces  his  stern  discourse  of  chapter  5  with  a 
'song  of  loves'  touching  the  vineyard  of  'my  well- 
beloved'  ;  how  he  cared  for  it,  how  he  planted  it  with 
the  choicest  vine,  and  in  the  end  it  brought  forth  wild 
grapes.  It  is  a  'mashal',  and  the  prophet  supplies  the 
meaning.  'For  the  vineyard  of  the  Lord  of  hosts  is  the 
house  of  Israel.' 

The  rigorism  of  the  prophets  destroyed 
Psalmody    . ,  .         r  ,  .         T       , 

the  expressions  of  natural  joy.    Israel  was 

not  to  rejoice  like  the  nations(Hosea  9.1).  A  sombre 
tone  had  been  struck,  and  lyric  poetry  exhausted 
itself  in  psalmody.  Songs  were  heard  in  the  night 
when  a  feast  was  hallowed,  or  in  the  procession  of 
pilgrims  as  they  ascended  the  Temple  mount  (Isaiah 
30.29).  At  the  sanctuary  the  worshippers  would  join 
in  a  shout  of  jubilation;  as  time  went  on  it  developed 
into  hymns  of  adoration  (hallel,  tehillah}  with  the 


TORAH,  WORD,  AND  WISDOM 69 

recurrent  refrain:  Praise  ye  the  Lord  (Hallelujah). 
The  prophets,  if  needs  be,  know  how  to  introduce  into 
their  discourses  hymns  of  praise,  songs  glorifying  the 
strong  arm  of  the  Lord  as  it  wrought  salvation  in 
primeval  days  (compare  Isaiah  51.  9,  10  with  Psalm 
74.12-17). 

T.     _.  The  'dirge'  was  a  species  of  song.  It  was 

a  song  of  woe  over  the  departed,  when 
grief  was  expressed  in  such  short  exclamations  as  'Ah 
my  brother',  'Ah  sister',  'Ah  lord,  ah  his  glory.'  In 
course  of  time  it  assumed  the  form  of  skilfully  elabo- 
rated poetic  lamentations,such  as  David's  laments  over 
Saul  and  Jonathan  (II  Samuel  1.19-27)  or  Abner  (3. 
33,  34),  which  required  the  services  of  professionals, 
men  and  women  singers  (II  Chronicles  35.25),  'skilful 
of  wailing' (Amos  5.16),  especially  of  'mourning  women* 
who  were  also  called  'wise  women'  (Jeremiah  9.  16). 
Thus  the  lamentation,  or  elegy,  is  not  only  linked  to 
the  song,  threnody  to  psalmody,  but  also  to  wisdom. 
The  prophets,  again,  frequently  have  occasion  to  use 
it;  it  becomes  in  their  hands  a  'mashal'  (Isaiah  14.3; 
Micah  2.4). 


CHAPTER  V 
THE  THREE  SHELVES 

_.,  Torah.    Prophecy,    and    multiform 

Difficulty  of      „,.   ,       '  ,  ., 

•»>  .L.          -r»     ,  Wisdom  thus    co-existed  as    manifes- 
Dating  a  Book      .         ..          .     ,       ..      ...c 

°  tations  of  the  nation  s  spiritual  hfe,cros- 


*u          u     c 
sing  and  re-crossing  each  the  path  of 

the  other,  and  their  very  rivalry  was  productive  of 
giving  and  taking.  There  is  no  reason  to  believe  that 
the  course  which  the  written  form  took  was  in  any 
wise  different.  Tradition  places  itself  squarely  upon 
this  position.  The  writings  of  the  third  division  of 
Scriptures  are  made  contemporaneous  with  those  of 
the  second  and  even  with  the  first.  Job,  the  Psalter, 
Koheleth  were  written  in  the  times  of  Moses,  David, 
Isaiah  (chapter  II).  There  is  great  difficulty  in  dating 
these  books  with  anything  like  accuracy.  We  shall 
probably  not  accept  the  traditional  dates.  But  when 
left  to  ourselves,  we  have  so  little  to  go  upon.  When 
was  Job  written?  The  moderns  are  quite  divided  in 
their  answers  :  in  the  seventh  century  close  upon  the  fall 
of  the  Northern  Kingdom  ;  in  the  sixth  before  or  during 
the  Babylonian  exile;  in  the  fifth  after  the  exile  im- 
mediately before  the  appearance  of  the  Priests'  Code. 

The  poet  makes  allusion  quite 
The  historical  .  ,  , 

~  .  generally  to  the  movements  ot 
Allusions  too  General  .  ,  .  .  , 

nations  away  from  their  homes 


THE  THREE  SHELVES 71 

(12.23) ;  but  such  dislocations  were  as  old  as  the  his- 
tory of  theOrient.and  there  is  no  evidence  that  the  fate 
of  Israel  or  of  Judah  was  before  the  author's  mind.  No 
less  vague  are  the  references  to  a  land  given  into  the 
hand  of  wicked  magistrates  or  governors  (9.24),  or  to 
strangers  overrunning  a  land  and  disturbing  its  wonted 
mode  of  life  (15.19).  Job  curses  the  day  of  his  birth 
(3.3)  and  so  does  Jeremiah  (20.14);  but  who  will  tell 
which  of  the  two,if  either,is  dependent  upon  the  other? 

HM-    T.    1-1  Nor  does  the  problem  with  which  the 

The  Problem,          ,    ,     ,     , %.  .          .,     ..         f  . 
_  ,  book  deals  shed  light  on  the  time  of  its 

Universal  .  .          ,     . 

composition.     It  is  the  ever-recurring 

question  of  the  'prosperity  of  the  wicked'  and  the 
'sufferings  of  the  righteous'  as  compatible  with  divine 
retribution  and  the  just  government  of  the  world.  It 
touches  a  universal  experience  of  mankind  and  may 
have  arisen  at  any  time.  All  that  can  be  said  is  that  it 
belongs  to  the  sphere  of  wisdom.  It  was  propounded 
among  the  wise  men  of  Edom  as  well  as  among  the 
teachers  of  wisdom  in  Israel.  It  recurs  in  Koheleth. 
The  prophets  were  agitated  by  it:  Malachi,  Ezekiel, 
Habakkuk,  Jeremiah.  The  great  nameless  prophet  of 
the  exile  constructed  the  ideal  figure  of  the  Suffering 
Servant.  In  the  Torah  the  question  of  deferred  pun- 
ishment and  the  share  of  children  in  the  sins  of  the 
fathers  is  touched  upon.  The  poet  understood  too 
well  that  his  theme  belonged  to  all  ages,  and  he  wisely 
refrained  from  dealing  with  it  in  terms  of  his  own  place 
and  time.  He  has  no  answer  to  a  question  which  he 


72  THE  SCRIPTURES  IN  THE  MAKING  _ 

was  neither  the  first  nor  the  last  to  raise.  It  is  insoluble. 
He  recognizes  it  as  such  whether  in  titanic  defiance 
he  exaggerates  the  self-sufficiency  of  the  human  con- 
science, or  in  seeming  meekness  he  is  overpowered  by 
the  divine  Omniscience.  A  subtle  irony  pervades  his 
resignation,  which  is  not  quite  of  the  pious  kind.  The 
higher  Wisdom  is  known  to  God  alone  ;  to  men  He 
imparted  a  little  wisdom:  the  fear  of  the  Lord  and 
turning  away  from  evil! 

»  divided  like  the  Torah  into 


Th    P    It 

five  books,  reveals  itself  as  a  combination 

of  smaller  bodies  of  psalms  or  hymns  and  testifies  to  a 
process  of  successive  enlargement.  Thus  we  find  a 
'Korahitic'  group  in  the  second  book,  the  'Songs  of  the 
Ascents'  in  the  fifth,  the  Hallelujah  psalms.  The 
subscription  at  the  end  of  the  third  book  (Psalm  72. 
20),  'the  prayers  of  David  the  son  of  Jesse  are  ended', 
was  apparently  taken  over  from  some  smaller  collec- 
tion, for  'Davidic'  psalms  are  found  later  on.  Just 
when  the  first  collection  was  made  escapes  our  knowl- 
edge. We  do  not  know  when  and  by  whom  the  head- 
ings were  appended,  with  their  specifications  of 
authorship  and  musical  directions  of  which  the  mean- 
ing is  largely  obscure.  Psalm  90  is  attributed  to  Moses  ; 
73  psalms  to  David,  two  to  Solomon,  and  26  to  various 
temple  singers  or  guilds  of  such,  all  dating,  according 
to  the  Chronicler,  from  the  times  of  David  who  is 
credited  by  him  with  the  institution  and  regulation  of 
the  song  liturgy  of  the  Temple. 


THE  THREE  SHELVES 78 

_  David  was  known  anciently 

The  Temple  Service  ,  .ir  .         .  .      (,  c 

as  a  skilful  musician  (I  Samuel 

16.18)  and  a  lyric  poet  (II  Samuel  1.  17;  3.33;  Amos  6. 
15).  At  the  sanctuaries,  vocal  and  instrumental  music 
accompanied  the  service  (Amos  5.23).  At  an  early  date 
the  song  service  in  the  Temple  at  Jerusalem  must  have 
been  organized.  The  singers  were  often  themselves 
poets,  or  else  they  obtained  poems  from  other  writers 
and  sometimes  adapted  existing  productions  to  their 
own  needs.  The  Temple  was  the  centre  of  piety,  of 
worship.  All  that  was  highest  in  the  spiritual  life  of 
the  community  gravitated  round  the  sacred  edifice. 
There  men  poured  out  their  soul  before  God ;  thither 
they  carried  their  tribulations,  their  doubts,  their 
searchings  of  heart ;  from  thence  they  took  home  re- 
newed trust,  forgiveness,  redemption.  How  those 
saints  loved  the  house  of  God,  how  their  souls  longed 
for  the  Temple  courts  where  there  were  throngs  of  like- 
minded,  how  they  sang  for  joy  unto  the  'living  God' ! 
Abroad  their  faith  might  falter  and  their  foot  well-nigh 
slip;  within,  as  they  entered  into  the  sanctuary,  they 
found  their  highest  good  in  being  near  unto  God. 
'Whom  have  I  in  heaven  but  Thee?  and  beside  Thee 
I  desire  none  upon  earth.  My  flesh  and  my  heart 
faileth ;  but  God  is  the  rock  of  my  heart  and  my  por- 
tion for  ever'  (Psalm  73.25,  26). 

TMiis     i*_    *  TV  A-  It  is  in  the  essence  of  so  lofty  a 

Difficulty  of  Dating    .  .     ..  ,    ..  ./ 

,.     -r,    /  piety  that,    though  its  manifes- 

the  Psalms  ./    .          ...   &  ,    , 

tation  is  conditioned    by  circum- 


74  THE  SCRIPTURES  IN  THE  MAKING 

stances  of  place  and  time,  it  lifts  itself  so  far  out  of  touch 
with  life's  affairs  as  to  transcend  both,  and  great  diffic- 
ulty will  always  attach  to  dating  a  psalm  purely  from 
its  contents.  It  seems  reasonable  to  suppose  that 
Psalm  137  was  not  penned  before  the  Babylonian 
captivity.  Psalm  79  and  several  others  in  which  ref- 
erence is  made  to  the  defiling  of  the  Temple  and  the 
martyrdom  of  the  saints  might  date  from  the  events 
which  led  to  the  Maccabean  uprising;  but  an  earlier 
occurrence  may  fit  the  veiled  allusions  just  as  well.  It 
is  pointed  out  that  the  clash  between  the  saints  and 
their  worldly  opponents  which  runs  through  the  whole 
Psalter  became  acute  during  the  persecution  under 
Antiochus  Epiphanes.  It  is  then  that  the  'saints' 
(hasidim)  organized  themselves  as  a  religious  party. 
But  it  stands  to  reason  that  the  conflict  was  long  in 
preparation  and  that  for  centuries,  even  before  the 
exile,  'separatists'  and  'liberals'  fought  for  ascendancy. 
Alcimus  and  Menelaus  and  Jason  had  their  prototypes 
in  the  opponents  of  Ezra  and  Nehemiah  who  were 
eager  to  make  peace  with  the  Samaritans,  in  Manasseh 
and  Ahab  and  Jeroboam  who  coquetted  with  foreign 
cultures,  in  all  those  who  would  fuse  Mosaism  and 
Canaanism;  justas  Judah  the  Maccabee  and  his  saints- 
warriors  were  the  spiritual  descendants  of  Ezra  and 
Josiah  and  Hezekiah,  of  Isaiah  and  Hosea,  of  Elijah 
and  Samuel,  of  the  zealot-priest  Phinehas  and  Moses, 
God's  'saintly  man'. 

It  is  a  preposterous  contention  that  no  psalm  dates 


THE  THREE  SHELVES 75 

from  pre-exilic  times.  Psalms  were  written  and  psalms 
were  assembled  in  collections  from  the  earliest  days. 
The  third  chapter  of  Habakkuk  is  a  psalm;  so  is  the 
twelfth  chapter  of  Isaiah  and  the  song  of  Exodus  15. 

Hymns  of  praise,  similar  in  character 
Psalms  outside  ,  .  . 

__     ,,  to  the  psalms,  are  introduced  into 

the  Psalter  -T    .     '  ~ 

the  prophetic  discourses.   Conversely 

the  spirit  of  the  prophets  and  of  the  Torah  dominates 
the  piety  of  the  psalmists.  Saints  the  world  over  are 
apt  to  consider  themselves  superior  to  the  Law  which 

it  is  the  essence  of  saintliness  to 
The  Spirit  of  the  ,  ~,  „ 

_      ,  transcend.  They  are  naturally  more 

Prophets  and  the     ,      ...  ,  .  , 

_      ,  ^      .  closely  akin  to  the  prophets  with 

Torah  Dominates   ...    j.   ,  .       ,  .... 

_    ,.  their  disdain  ot  external  ritualism. 

the  Psalter  „,    ,         ,    .       ,          ..        ,        . 

1  o  the  psalmist  who  realizes  that  sin 

is  inborn  and  purity  an  effort  of  the  regenerated  will — 
echo  of  the  prophet-lawgiver  (Genesis  8.21 ;  Deutero- 
nomy 10. 16;  Leviticus  26.41)as  well  as  of  Jeremiah  and 
Ezekiel — there  comes  the  certainty  that  the  'sacrifices 
of  God  (that  is,  pleasing  to  Him)  are  a  broken  spirit,  a 
broken  and  contrite  heart'  (Psalm  51.19).  But  imme- 
diately the  corrective  follows  in  conformity  with  priest- 
ly legislation  and  prayer  is  made  for  the  restoration  of 
the  walls  of  Jerusalem  when  'bullocks  will  be  offered 
upon  the  altar'  (verses  20  and  21).  Psalm  1  defines  the 
saint  as  a  student  of  the  Torah,  which  is  his  whole 
concern,  in  which  he  meditates  day  and  night.  The 
entire  Psalm  119  is  a  song  of  praise  of  the  Torah, 
to  which  the  saint  clings  with  all  his  being,  loving  it, 


76  THE  SCRIPTURES  IN  THE  MAKING 

cherishing  it  fondly,  prizing  it  above  gold  and  silver 
and  all  wealth,  rejoicing  in  it  as  the  source  of  truth,  of 
'wondrous  things'  which  the  illuminated  eye  may 
behold. 

v  u  i  *u  I*1  tne  Book  of  Koheleth  we  meet  with 
Koheleth  . 

descriptions  of  despotic  rulers,  corrupt  and 

covetous  governors,  of  officials  subject  to  higher 
officials — all  too  general  for  ascertaining  the  author's 
date.  The  parable  of  the  youth  passing  his  childhood 
in  poverty  and  prison  and  then  supplanting  upon  the 
throne  an  old  and  foolish  king  and  receiving  the 
homage  of  a  host  of  flatterers — the  'worship  of  the 
rising  Sun'  —  is  again  too  indefinite  to  confine  the 
identification  to  any  one  example  in  history.  The 
author  is  revealed  as  a  well-informed  teacher  of  'wis- 
dom', who  'pondered,  and  sought  out,  and  set  in 
order  many  mashals'.  He  was  much  wiser  than  his 
commentators ;  he  indulged  in  paradoxes  and  assumed 
the  free  and  easy  manner  of  seeing  two  sides  to  a 
question ;  he  veiled  his  unorthodoxy  by  acting  as  his  own 
interpolator.  The  fine  irony  of  his  conclusion — 'fear 
God,  and  keep  His  commandments;  for  this  is  all  that 
is  left  to  man' — puts  him  into  a  category  with  the 
poet-philosopher  to  whom  we  are  indebted  for  the 
book  of  Job. 

The   strongest   point   in    any   at- 
The  Evidence  . 

_  tempt  at  placing   Koheleth   is  the 

from  Language        .,         ,  *    ,  <Tr*u   r>     i 

evidence  from  language.    I f  the  Book 

of  Koheleth  be  of  old  Solomonic  origin,  then  there  is 


THE  THREE  SHELVES 77 

no  history  of  the  Hebrew  language.'  Tradition,  how- 
ever, does  not  ascend  quite  that  high;  it  brings  the 
'writing'  down  to  the  age  of  Hezekiah.  Now  what  do 
we  actually  know  about  the  fortunes  of  the  Hebrew 
language?  We  are  barely  able  to  distinguish  two 
periods:  a  golden  and  a  silver  period.  In  the  latter 
certain  grammatical  forms,  syntactical  constructions, 
and  words,  especially  particles,  approach  the  state  of 
the  language  of  the  Mishna.  But,  as  students  of 
language  know,  it  often  takes  centuries  for  a  new  coin- 
age, at  first  employed  sparingly,  to  pass  into  general 
use.  We  must  not  on  the  basis  of  one  word  or  turn  of 
speech  pronounce  upon  the  date  of  a  writing.  The 
literature  is  too  scanty.  Cumulative  evidence  alone 
leads  to  results  which  may  be  said  to  have  convincing 
power.  Moreover,  subject-matter  has  always  much 
to  do  with  style.  Prayers  cannot  be  composed  in  the 
style  of  legal  enactments,  and  a  philosophical 
treatise  must  perforce  take  on  diction  foreign  to  both. 
Koheleth  may  have  been  written  in  the  Grecian 
or  in  the  late  Persian  period,  but  conceivably  also  at 
an  earlier  point;  the  writer  would  simply  have  been 
forced  to  create  the  appropriate  style  when  he  needed 
it.  He  really  could  not  write  his  book  in  the  language 
of  Isaiah  or  Deuteronomy. 

n     .  .       There  is  one  book  in  the  third  division, 

Daniel,  the  date  of  which  we  may  establish 

with  accuracy  by  the  aid  of  the  historical  perspective, 

which  is  brought  down  to  the  stirring  events  in  which 


78  THE  SCRIPTURES  IN  THE  MAKING 

it  was  published.  It  opens  up  a  novel  genre  of  litera- 
ture of  which  in  the  sequel  there  arose  numerous  im- 
itations (chapter  VI).  It  is  an  apocalyptic  writing,  a 
book  of  revelations  or  visions,  in  which  events  of  the 
distant  future  are  outlined  in  all  their  detail  far  ahead. 
The  end  is  neatly  calculated  in  definite  terms  of  years, 
up  to  which  end  the  visions  are  sealed  up,  to  be  opened 
only  when  the  finale  of  the  drama  supervenes.  What- 
ever older  materials  the  writer  may  have  used,  partic- 
ularly in  the  first  part  of  the  book,  he  certainly  wrote 
in  full  view  of  the  persecution  under  Antiochus  Epi- 
phanes.  Although  sympathizing  with  the  martyrs  who 
suffered  death,  the  author  of  Daniel  made  it  his  defin- 
ite object  to  discountenance  the  resort  to  arms  under 
the  leadership  of  the  priest  of  Modein  and  his  sons 
in  the  firm  belief  that  the  kingdom  of  saints  was  at 
hand,  coming  down  with  the  clouds  of  heaven,  with 
no  human  effort  whatsoever. 

mt.    HM-.  i  r*  It  is    an  altogether  erroneous 

The  Third  Group  .  .       .       ° .    . ., 

_.  ,.     .  .  supposition  that  all  of  the  writings 

Distinct  in  .     ,    ...     .    ......  •• 

0  .  .  comprised  within  the  third  division 

Subject-matter  ,                              . 

must  have  been  composed  after 

the  second  or  prophetic  collection  had  been  closed. 
The  books  of  the  third  division  rather  form  a  group 
distinct  in  subject-matter  from  the  two  which  pre- 
cede it  in  the  editions.  Its  nucleus  is  made  up  of  the 
the  Books  of  Wisdom — Wisdom  in  all  its  many 
ramifications.  Job  and  the  two  Solomonic  writings, 
Proverbs  and  Koheleth,  clearly  belong  to  the  'mashal* 


THE  THREE  SHELVES 79 

class.  But  so  is  also  the  lyric  poetry  of  the  Psalter, 
the  Song  of  Songs,  and  Lamentations  an  emanation  of 

™.    TTT-           T»  the  spirit  of  wisdom  (chapter 

The  Wisdom  Books  ¥17N       »»                 *.*_ 

,.    .    ,.      ,     .  IV).      Moreover,    there    are 

(including  Lyric  ,    '      .  ,                   ,  .  ,        „ 

TV         x  ,      ir    1  didactic    psalms  which  call 

Poetry)  the  Nucleus  .                 ,       ,    ,  ,  ,„    , 

themselves   mashals    (Psalms 

49  and  78) ;  others  (like  Psalms  73  and  88)  deal  with 
the  problem  treated  in  the  Book  of  Job.  The  Book  of 
Lamentations  is  lyric  poetry  of  the  elegiac  kind ;  the 
third  chapter  in  addition  has  points  of  contact  with 
Job.  The  Song  of  Songs  is  a  collection  of  erotic  idylls 
of  the  pastoral  kind ;  songs  which  were  wont  to  be  sung 
at  weddings  when  bridegroom  and  bride  played  king 
and  queen.  These  poems  had  for  their  theme  the  eternal 
attraction  of  man  and  maid,  the  passion  which  is 
'strong  as  death,  cruel  as  the  grave,  whose  flashes  are 
a  very  flame  of  the  Lord,'  unquenchable,  unextinguish- 
able,  the  love  which  no  purchase  price  can  buy.  The 
naive  simplicity  with  which  things  natural  are  named 
might  shock  the  rigorist  prude  (chapter  VI) ;  to  the 
mind  of  the  collector  of  the  Scriptures  the  Song  of 
Songs  approved  itself,  as  it  did  in  the  sequel  when  it 
was  read  in  the  synagogue  at  the  vernal  season  when 
'the  winter  is  past  and  the  rain  is  over  and  gone',  as  a 
'mashal',  a  symbol  of  the  divine  love  for  Israel  and  of 
the  longing  with  which  Israel  awaits  the  day  when  God 
will  speed  the  redemption. 


80  THE  SCRIPTURES  IN  THE  MAKING 

r»««joi  ui«»™'M  Tne  visionary  Daniel,  to  the 

Daniel  likewise          .        ,  J  .    ' 

•a    I*    t  w«.j«,     mmd  of  tne  collector,  differed  from 
a  Book  of  Wisdom  A  ,  „    .  .  ,  . 

Amos  and  Ezekiel  and  Zechanah. 

He  was  quite  right  in  his  feeling  that  this  man  was  no 
prophet.  Ezekiel  makes  reference  to  the  Daniel  he 
knew  as  a  'wise  man'  (Ezekiel  28.3);  and  as  such  the 
Daniel  of  our  book  is  described  (1.17,20;  2.21;  5.11), 
a  man  in  whom  is  the  spirit  of  God,  in  whom  is  found 
light  and  understanding  and  surpassing  wisdom  (5.14). 
It  is  therefore  essentially  as  a  book  of  wisdom  that 
Daniel  was  put  in  the  third  division. 

-,  The    Book    of    Chronicles    was 

Books  connected     ,  , 

•iu  *u    T»    i*          looked  upon  by  the  collector  as  a 
with  the  Psalter      c    .      -f  .  , 

fitting  Preface  to  the  Psalter.    It 

deals  like  no  other  book  with  the  organizations  of  the 
singer  guilds  and  the  institution  of  Levitical  song  wor- 
ship, both  of  which  the  Chronicler  assigns  to  David. 
The  present  conclusion  of  Chronicles  breaks  off  in  the 
middle  of  the  third  verse  of  the  opening  chapter  of 
Ezra.  Originally  therefore  Ezra-Nehemiah  was  a  part 
of  Chronicles ;  the  author  carried  the  history  down  to 
the  times  of  Alexander  the  Great  and  showed  how  the 
Davidic  institutions  were  re-introduced  at  the  time  of 
the  restoration.  The  whole  was  broken  up  at  a  later 
date,  when  Chronicles  was  put  at  the  end  of  the  col- 
lection and  the  Scriptures  concluded  significantly  with 
the  phrase  'let  him  go  up'.  With  Chronicles  the  col- 
lector joined  Esther,  which  narrates  an  event  of  the 
period  with  which  portions  of  Ezra  deal.  With  the 


THE  THREE  SHELVES 81 

Psalter  went  probably  also  the  little  volume  of  Ruth, 
for  the  reason  that  it  concludes  with  a  genealogy  of 
David.  For  one  thing  the  placing  of  Ruth  in  the  third 
group  shows  an  act  of  deliberation.  Had  the  collector 
been  influenced  by  considerations  relative  to  the  time 
of  its  composition — about  which  he  was  as  little  in- 
formed as  we  are  to-day — he  would  have  put  it  higher 
up  among  the  historical  books  of  the  second  division, 
uncritically  holding,  as  does  the  talmudic  tradition, 
that  Samuel,  or  some  such  writer  near  the  times  with 
which  it  deals,  was  its  author. 

The  Three  Shelves      Thus'  the  aPPendaSes  to  the 
Psalter  notwithstanding,  the  third 

division  is  shown  to  form  a  homogeneous  group  of 
Wisdom  books.  That  body  of  writings,  now  smaller 
now  larger,  kept  pace  with  the  growth  of  the  other  two 
divisions.  It  went  by  the  loose  term  'Writings',  'other 
books',  books  indeed  different  in  subject-matter  from 
Torah  and  Prophets.  The  three  divisions  of  Scriptures 
from  the  very  first  beginnings,  when  priests  wrote 
down  on  rolls  their  torahs,  and  prophets  gathered 
their  addresses  together  'that  they  might  be  for  a  time 
to  come  for  ever  and  ever'  (Isaiah  30.8)  or  had  their 
disciples  relate  the  'great  things'  that  they  had  done 
(II  Kings  8.4),  and 'wise  men'  had  their  words  com- 
mitted to  writing  (Proverbs  22.17,  20)  and  their 
'mashals'  assembled  in  collections  (Ecclesiastes  12.11), 
until  the  very  end  when  the  whole  body  of  Holy  Writ 
was  closed,  maintained  themselves  as  co-existing 


82  THE  SCRIPTURES  IN  THE  MAKING 

groups,  distinct  in  subject-matter.  They  did  not,  of 
course,all  come  to  an  end  simultaneouly,  and  the  third 
group  may  have  been  longest  in  closing.  The  impor- 
tant point  is  that  no  matter  at  what  cross-section  in  the 
literary  and  religious  history  of  the  nation  we  place 
ourselves,  there  was  a  tripartite  body  of  Scriptures. 
To  speak  the  language  of  our  modern  libraries,  each  set 
of  writings  had  its  own  shelf,  each  single  writing  its 
shelf  mark,  and  as  a  new  book  was  written  and  deemed 
worthy  of  acceptance,  it  was  entered  as  an  accession 
and  received  its  place  in  accordance  with  its  subject- 
matter  or  literary  character:  the  books  of  the  Torah 
by  themselves,  the  books  of  and  about  the  Prophets 
by  themselves,  and  the  Books  of  Wisdom  by  them- 
selves. 


CHAPTER  VI 
THREE,  NOT  FOUR 

Exclusion,  rather  than  inclusion,  marked  the  closing 
of  the  collection.  The  Scriptures  were  meant  to  consist 
of  the  three  parts ;  there  was  to  be  no  fourth  part.  The 
rabbis  render  Proverbs  22:  20:  'Have  I  not  written 

_,  „,..  unto  thee  treble  things?' and  they  add: 
Treble  Things  ,  ,  ,  0  *  . 

treble,  but  not  quadruple.  By  refusing 

to  create  a  fourth  order  of  a  dignity  comparable  let  us 
say  with  thatof  the  third,  so  as  to  admit  whatever  writ- 
ings stood  without,  the  makers  of  the  collection  in- 
dicated that  nothing  could  be  added  to  it,  that  it  was 
closed.  The  rabbis  give  expression  to  this  thought  in 
a  variety  of  ways  over  and  above  the  remark  just  cited. 
Koheleth  closes  with  the  epigram  which  has  passed 
into  a  proverb:  'Of  making  many  books  there  is  no 
end'  (12.12).  The  preceding  clause  the  rabbis  make 
to  read  in  literal  rendition:  'And  of  more  than  these 

,  _. ,  (that  is,  the  words  of  the  wise  that  are 

Of  more  than  '       .        „      .      . 

.          ,  ,  composed    in  collections),    my    son, 

beware.'  By  a  play  upon  the  Hebrew 
mehemmah  (=than  these)  they  deliver  themselves 
of  the  dictum :  'He  who  admits  to  his  house  more  than 
the  twenty-four  books  (5  of  the  Torah,  8  of  the  Proph- 
ets, 1 1  of  the  Writings) ,  admits  confusion  (Hebrew 
mehumah).' 


84  THE  SCRIPTURES  IN  THE  MAKING 

Books  which  may       ,Then  again  upo?  thf  basi?  of  the 

.  .  -  closing  sentence :  and  much  study 

or  may  not  be  read  .  .  ,   ,     a      ,  ' 

is  a  weariness  of  the  flesh  ,  which 

after  their  wont  they  handle  rather  freely,  they  draw 
the  line  between  writings  which  may  be  perused  casu- 
ally, read  as  one  reads  a  letter,  and  those  which,  like 
the  books  of  the  acknowledged  Scriptures,  are  objects 
of  painstaking  study.  They  know  of  still  another  class 
of  books  which  it  is  forbidden  to  read  at  all,  even  pri- 
vately. Those  are  the  writings  which  stand  entirely 
outside,  not  merely  outside  the  collection  of  Holy 
Writ,  but  even  beyond  the  pale  of  Judaism,  like  the 
literary  productions  of  the  Judeo-Christians ;  any  Jew 
who  reads  them  excommunicates  himself,  forfeits  his 
share  in  the  world  to  come. 

Both  the  near-scriptural  writings,  which  one  may 
read  though  only  casually  and  privately,  and  the 
others  which  may  not  be  read  at  all  are  described  as 

_    ...  'writings  which  do  not  defile  the 

Defiling  the  Hands  ,  ,  , b  ,  ..  <  .,  .,  „  ,  0  .  . 
hands ,  while  all  the  Holy  Script- 
ures defile  the  hands' ;  that  is  to  say,  after  handling  any 
of  the  books  in  the  body  of  the  twenty-four  Scriptures 
one  must  wash  his  hands.  It  is  certainly  a  peculiar 
injunction,  but  its  strangeness  disappears  when  we 
remember  that  the  high  priest  on  the  Day  of  Atone- 
ment washed  his  body  with  water,  not  only  when  he  put 
on  the  holy  garments  of  the  day,  but  also  when  he  put 
them  off.  The  transition  from  the  holy  to  the  common 
is  marked  by  an  ablution.  As  the  rabbis  themselves 


THREE,  NOT  FOUR 85 

explain  it,  the  bones  of  an  unclean  animal  do  not  defile 
through  contact  with  them,  but  the  bones  of  a  high 
priest  do. 

The  near-scriptural    books  are  further  defined  as 
those  which,  like  Ben  Sira,  'were  written  from  that 

time  onwards'.   A  line  is  apparently 
From  that  time    ,  .        .  f  ., J 

,  ,  drawn  somewhere  in  the  age  of  the 

onwards  .,  ... 

scribes     when    inspiration    ceased. 

Josephus  expresses  himself  similarly  when  he  says 
that  'from  the  time  of  Artaxerxes  (the  biblical  Ahasu- 
erus)  to  our  own  days  there  have  been  written  many 
historical  books  covering  each  period,  but  they  are  not 
deemed  to  possess  the  same  degree  of  trustworthiness 
or  authority  which  inheres  in  those  which  preceded 
them,  for  the  reason  that  the  accurate  tradition  of  the 
prophets  was  unavailable'. 

When  the  rabbis  refer  to  attempts  at  excluding  a 

„  _  scriptural    book,  removing  it  from 

Secreting  Books    .,        .,    , .      ,  '  .    . ,  ,  . , 

the  collection  (as  in  the  case  of  the 

Song  of  Songs  and  Ecclesiastes  for  obvious  reasons, 
or  of  Proverbs  on  account  of  the  secular,  un-prophetic 
character  of  the  'mashals',  or  of  a  prophetic  book  like 
that  of  Ezekiel  because  of  the  contradictions  between 
it  and  the  Pentateuch),  the  expression  employed  is: 
'they  (that  is,  the  authorities)  sought  to  secrete  (store 
away,  hide,  ganaz)  this  or  that  book.'  In  the  synagogue 
chests  only  the  volumes  of  the  Scriptures  might  be 
kept;  anything  that  was  un-scriptural  wandered  into 
the  store-room  (Genizah). 


86  THE  SCRIPTURES  IN  THE  MAKING 

,.  To  understand  aright  the  Genizah  and  its 

Gemzah  „  __, 

contents,  one  must  recall  the  reverence  in 

which  not  only  the  Scriptures  were  had,  but  anything, 
a  book  of  prayers  for  example, in  which  the  divine  name 
occurred.  Any  loose  pages  or  fragments  with  Hebrew 
writing  would  be  gathered  up  by  the  beadle  and  de- 
posited in  the  store-room,  where  they  might  be  safe 
from  profanation,  but  not  of  course  from  worms,  but 
then  the  destruction  might  go  on  of  itself.  An  heret- 
ical book  would  be  burnt  outright.  Near-scriptural 
books,  unfit  for  public  reading,  were  withdrawn  by 
placing  them  in  the  Genizah.  So  it  is  that  in  the  famous 
Cairo  Genizah,  of  biblical  books  (and  for  that  matter 
of  works  of  the  post-biblical  literature  which  in  medi- 
eval times  were  to  be  found  in  such  synagogues  as 
also  served  as  'houses  of  study'),  only  fragments  were 
found,  while  of  a  book  like  Ben  Sira  almost  two  thirds 
have  been  recovered ;  the  remaining  leaves  may  have 
been  stolen  previously,  or,  which  is  more  probable, 
had  succumbed  to  destruction.  Accordingly,  storing 
away  was  a  method  of  withdrawing  a  writing  from 
circulation  and  especially  from  public  reading;  by  this 
act  it  was  indicated  that  it  was  apocryphal,  just  as 
keeping  it  in  public  view,  like  the  Scroll  in  the  ark, 
made  a  volume  canonical. 

_.  ,„  The  term  Canon  is  Christian, 

The  terms  'Canon      ,  ,c      ..,        ,  .    „  , 

.    ,        the  word  Semitic  (caneh  in  Hebrew 
and  Apocrypha 

means  a   measuring-rod;    hence 

measure,  standard),  the  thing  itself,  as  we  have  seen, 


THREE,  NOT  FOUR 87 

Jewish.  So  does  the  term  'apocryphal',  literally  'hid- 
den', which  is  employed  in  the  Church,  express  the 
Jewish  notions  just  outlined.  To  the  Church  'canon- 
ical' means  'inspired',  at  once  corresponding  to  and 
containing  the  rule  of  faith;  it  is  designated  as 'open', 
'public',  while  the  counterpart  'apocryphal'  is  spoken 
of  as  'private',  and  apocryphal  literature  signifies 
books  which  may  be  perused  for  private  edification. 
And  the  Church  distinguishes  another  body  of  writ- 
ings which  are  condemned  as  heretical ;  there  is  spu- 
rious Scripture  which  affects  the  diction  and  style  of 
the  authentic,  but  the  former  is  as  different  from  the 
latter  as  the  counterfeit  from  the  real  and  true. 

Reference  was  made  above 
Attempts  at  excluding  __, 

T,     ,       ,       .    .  to  an  attempt  to  throw  out 

Books  already  in  .   .     ,      ,  ^     ,   , ,      ~ 

...    „  certain   books  of  the  Canon, 

the  Canon  .     ,    .      ,     c          c  c 

particularly  the  Song  of  Songs 

and  Ecclesiastes,  to  transfer  them  from  the  body  of 
publicly  read  Scriptures  to  the  outside,  to  assign  to 
.them  at  best  near-scriptural  rank  which  would  thus 
place  them  on  a  level  with  Ben  Sira  and  make  of  them 
books  fit  for  private  reading  only.  According  to  tra- 
dition, the  two  houses  or  schools  of  Shammai  and  Hillel 
were  divided  in  their  opinion.  At  the  time  of  Akiba, 
who  regarded  it  as  unthinkable  that  the  dispute  should 
have  turned  upon  the  Song  which,  he  declared,  was 
the  most  holy  book  in  the  third  division,  the  rabbis 
were  not  quite  certain  as  to  which  of  the  two  books 
was  contested.  But  whether  the  one  or  the  other  or 


88  THE  SCRIPTURES  IN  THE  MAKING 

both,  the  teachers,  with  a  view  to  the  form  in  which 
the  notion  of  'apocryphal'  was  expressed  in  the  schools 
(see  above),  credited  the  Shammaites  with  a  lenient 
attitude  and  the  Hillelites  with  the  stricter  one,  which 
is  the  reverse  of  the  usual  procedure.  But,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  if  'defiling  the  hands'  and  the  opposite  are 
translated  into  'canonical'  and  'apocryphal',  the  school 
of  Shammai  which  held  that  Ecclesiastes  'does  not 
defile  the  hands'  was  true  to  its  general  rigorism,  and 
the  retention — not,  of  course,  the  inclusion ;  that  had 
happened — of  Koheleth  in  the  collection  of  Holy  Writ 
we  owe  to  the  followers  of  the  mild  Hillel. 

^  ~   .  That  brings  us  down  to  the  years 

Defining  what  is    .          ,.      ,  6  ,  e  „ 

.  _,  immediately  preceding  and  follow- 

not  Scripture         .  .        /%         , 

mg  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  in 

the  year  70  of  the  common  era.  It  was  then  that 
Pharisaism  made  ready  to  take  over  the  sole  leader- 
ship of  the  nation.  The  war  with  Rome  had  strength- 
ened the  'separatist'  tendencies  still  further;  the 
dangers  from  the  nascent  sect  out  of  which  the  Church 
emerged  were  becoming  acute.  A  stricter  view  was 
taken  of  the  Canon,  and  though,  thanks  to  the  spirit 
of  Hillel  still  alive  in  his  disciples,  it  was  left  as  it  had 
been  for  over  two  centuries,  that  body  of  near- 
scriptural  writings  which  had  hovered  on  the  border- 
land and  which  might  have  constituted  a  fourth  di- 
vision, was  resolutely  pushed  aside  and  put  without. 
The  dispute  about  one  or  the  other  book  of  the  Canon 
arose  because  just  then  the  teachers  were  busy  defining 


THREE,  NOT  FOUR 89 

what  is  not  Scripture,  and  while  on  the  subject  of 
excluding  Ben  Sira  and  the  other  'apocryphal'  writings 
an  attempt  could  be  made  to  extend  the  exclusion  to 
a  'canonical'  book.  The  book  of  Job  seems  likewise  to 
have  been  scrutinized;  for  'in  that  day'  the  question 
was  discussed  whether  Job  served  God  from  motives 
of  love  or  from  motives  of  fear.  The  concise  formu- 
lation of  the  dictum  'Ben  Sira  and  all  the  books 
written  from  that  time  onward  do  not  defile  the  hands' 
gives  it  the  appearance  of  an  official  resolution  such 
as  was  carried,  we  are  told,  at  the  memorable  session 
at  Jabneh  about  90  of  the  common  era,  when  Gamaliel 
was  deposed  and  Eleazar  ben  Azariah  made  head 
of  the  school. 

The  excluded  writings,  however, 

Fate  of  the  ,   4      ,  .      ' 

T>    i       j  TTT  •J..        continued  to  be  read  privately; 

Excluded  Writings    ..,.        ,        D      c.      *I         ,  : 

citations  from  Ben  Sira  abound  in 

the  talmudic-midrashic  literature,  and  when  the  tea- 
chers forget  themselves  they  include  the  apocryphal 
book  among  the  'Writings' ;  copies  of  it  were  still  cur- 
rent in  the  tenth  century  and  those  that  have  been 
recovered  from  the  Genizah  are  found  to  have  marginal 
directions  to  the  reader,  that  is,  the  public  reader,  to 
'read  so  and  so',  exactly  as  is  the  case  with  the  canon- 
ical Scriptures.  In  later,  and  possibly  still  earlier, 
times  several  apocryphal  writings,  like  Wisdom  of 
Solomon  and  Susanna,  were  transcribed  from  the  Syr- 
iac  and  read  with  avidity  by  Jewish  scholars.  Even  the 
heretical  books  continued  to  be  read  until  the  times  of 


90  THE  SCRIPTURES  IN  THE  MAKING 

Akiba.when  in  the  Hadrianic  war  the  Judeo-Christian 
sect  which  stood  aloof  in  the  national  uprising  was 
definitively  thrust  out  and  their  literature,  by  which 
many  a  teacher  was  fascinated,  condemned,  exactly 
as  were  their  cures  in  the  name  of  the  Nazarene. 

The  closing  of  the  Canon  by  the  excluding  act 
which  segregated  the  Apocrypha  was  the  work  of 

_,.  Pharisaism  triumphant.   The  one  book 

Pharisaism       .      .     ~  rTY  .,     , 

T  .        .in  the  Canon  which  was  after  the  heart 

of  the  Pharisee  was  Daniel;  there  the 
doctrine  of  the  resurrection  of  the  dead,  which  consti- 
tuted one  of  the  points  on  which  Pharisees  and  Sad- 
ducees  divided,  was  enunciated.  Indeed  the  whole 
spirit  of  the  book  with  its  opposition  to  all  human 
effort  to  bring  about  liberation  from  the  foreign  yoke 
and  its  insistence  on  the  miraculous  nature  of  redem- 
ption squared  with  the  tenor  of  Phraisaism.  It  was 
the  first  manifesto  of  the  nascent  party  whose  rise 
to  power  was  gradual,  coming  after  repeated  struggles 
with  their  opponents  in  which  they  were  often  worsted. 
It  shows  how  the  canonical  character  of  a  book  like 
Koheleth  had  been  long  established,  for  its  Sadducee 
leanings  are  quite  clear,  if  one  may  speak  of  Sadducee- 
ism  before  there  was  a  Sadducee  party.  The  Pharisees 
were  the  spiritual  descendants  of  the  scribes  and  priest- 
prophets;  the  Canon  as  an  inheritance  from  the  past 
was  in  the  main  an  accomplished  fact;  as  they  broke 
with  the  Hasmonean  dynasty,  they  put  the  finishing 
touches  to  the  collection  by  narrowing  down  the  com- 


THREE,  NOT  FOUR 91 

pass  of  the  third  division  so  as  to  exclude  writings 
which  failed  to  come  up  to  their  standard. 

In  Alexandria,  the  translation  of 
The  Compass  of      ,     c    .  .  '  ,  .  , 

,.     0        *  the  Scriptures  in  Greek,  begun  with 

the  Scriptures  ~      , 

.     . ,          ,  .  the  Torah,  had  grown  apace,  and  by 

in  Alexandria  *  H 

the  time  that  Ben  Sira  was  done 

into  Greek,  about  130  before  the  common  era,  the  Law 
and  the  Prophets  and  the  other  Writings  were  read  in 
that  language.  Other  books  not  admitted  into  the 
Canon,  were  likewise  translated.  In  the  manuscripts 
of  the  Greek  translation,  the  very  oldest  of  which 
were  copied  by  Christians  for  Christian  use,  the 
apocryphal  books  are  intermixed  with  the  canonical. 
This  body  of  writings  was  taken  over  by  the  Church 
from  the  Alexandrian  Jews,  but  it  may  be  doubted 
whether  the  combination  of  the  two  classes  in  one 
collection  goes  back  to  Jewish  antecedents.  In 
Palestine  the  excluded  writings,  left  to  private  care, 
slowly  but  surely  disappeared,  and  works  which  in  the 
fourth  century  of  the  common  era  were  still  to  be  read 
in  their  original  Hebrew  or  Aramaic  vanished  to 
leave  no  trace  behind,  thus  accomplishing  the  intent 
of  the  act  of  90.  What  knowledge  we  have  of  the 
Apocrypha  we  owe  to  the  Christian  Church  which 
cherished  them.  '  "He  (Judah  the  Maccabee)  angered 
many  kings,  and  made  Jacob  glad  with  his  acts,  and 
his  memorial  is  blessed  for  ever."  But  Jacob  would 
have  forgotten  him,  had  not  the  books  of  the  Mac- 
cabees been  preserved  by  the  Church.' 


92  THE  SCRIPTURES  IN  THE  MAKING 

The  Council  of  the  Trent  (1546) 
The  Canon  of  the  ,  .    ,    „   .    ,       ' 

r*  j.i-  1-    /M.  accepted  as  canonical  all  the  books 

Catholic  Church  ^  .      ,    .      ,,       T     . 

contained    m    the    Latin    version 

known  as  Vulgate,  that  is,  in  addition  to  the  twenty- 
four  books  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  also  Tobit  and 
Judith  (between  Nehemiah  and  Esther),  the  additions 
to  Esther,  Wisdom  of  Solomon  and  Ecclesiasticus 
(Ben  Sira ;  after  the  Song  of  Songs) ,  Baruch  including 
the  Epistle  of  Jeremiah  (after  Lamentations  appended 
to  Jeremiah),  Susanna  and  Bel  and  the  Dragon  (as  an 
appendix  to  Daniel ;  in  chapter  3  the  Song  of  the  Three 
Holy  Children — Hananiah,  Mishael  and  Azariah — is 
inserted),  I  and  II  Maccabees  (at  the  close  of  the 
Prophets).  The  Anglican  Church  retained  these  books 
(together  with  III  and  IV  Ezra  and  the  Prayer  of 
Manasseh)  as  useful  in  the  Church  'for  example  of  life 
and  instruction  of  manner',  but  they  are  relegated  to 
an  appendix  or  to  a  separate  volume  as  near-Scripture. 

,  -,  On  the  other  hand,  the  Catho- 

Uncanonical  Books  ..   _,,  '      . 

he  Church  excludes  from  its  canon 

(of  Old  Testament  Scriptures)  a  number  of  writings 
extant  in  Greek  or  in  translations  from  the  Greek, 
such  as  III  Ezra  (a  fragmentary  translation  of  Chron- 
icles-Ezra-Nehemiah,  according  to  certain  scholars 
older  than  the  canonical  translation  of  these  books  in 
which  Ezra  figures  as  I  Ezra  and  Nehemiah  as  II 
Ezra),  III  Maccabees  (which  relates  the  persecution 
of  the  Jews  in  Egypt  under  Ptolemy  IV),  IV  Macca- 
bees (a  philosophical  treatise  illustrating  the  power  of 


THREE,  NOT  FOUR 98 

reason  to  control  the  passions  by  the  example  of  the 
martyrdom  of  Eleazar  and  of  the  seven  Maccabean 
brothers),  The  Book  of  Jubilees  (an  exposition  of 
Genesis  and  the  first  twelve  chapters  of  Exodus  with 
the  years  counted  in  cycles  of  fifty  years  each),  The 
Apocalypse  (Revelation)  of  Baruch  of  which  the  Epistle 
of  Baruch  to  the  Ten  Tribes  is  a  separate  excerpt 
(containing  revelations  alleged  to  have  been  received 
by  Jeremiah's  disciple  and  companion  before  and 
after  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem),  Psalm  151  (the 
supernumerary  psalm  appended  to  the  Greek  trans- 
lation), The  Psalter  of  Solomon  (18  psalms  deploring 
the  fate  of  the  Jews  during  the  Roman  occupation  of 
Jerusalem  by  Pompey  and  enunciating  the  hope  in  the 
advent  of  the  Messiah),  The  Prayer  of  Manasseh 
(with  reference  to  II  Chronicles  33.  12,  18),  IV  Ezra 
(visions  and  prophecies  of  Ezra  concerning  the  advent 
of  the  Messiah,  the  day  of  judgment,  and  the 
destruction  of  the  Roman  empire),  The  Book  of  the 
Secrets  of  Enoch,  The  Assumption  of  Moses  (treats 
of  events  under  the  Hasmoneans  and  Herod),  The 
Ascension  of  Isaiah  (martyrdom  of  the  prophet) ,  The 
Testaments  of  the  Twelve  Patriarchs,  The  Testament 
of  Job,  The  Sibylline  Oracles  (put  in  the  mouth  of  the 
heathen  'Sibyl'),  the  Epistle  of  Aristeas  (an  exaltation 
of  the  Jewish  Law  incident  to  the  narrative  concerning 
the  origin  of  the  Greek  translation  of  the  Pentateuch), 
and  others.  Within  recent  years  discovery  has  been 
made  of  the  Odes  of  Solomon  and  (in  the  Hebrew 


94  THE  SCRIPTURES  IN  THE  MAKING 

original  recovered  from  the  Cairo  Genizah)  of  a  sec- 
tarian work  published  by  Dr.  Schechter,  in  which  the 
Book  of  Jubilees  and  the  Testament  of  Levi  are  refer- 
red to  or  cited  and  the  doctrine  developed  of  a  Messiah 
from  the  seed  of  Aaron. 

It  is  quite  possible  that  some  of  these  writings, 

though  not  all,  were  composed 
Character  of  the  Books     .  .     ,,     .     '    ,  ^A 

A  .j    ^    i-r  t.  originally  in  Hebrew  orAra- 

outside  the  Hebrew  .       , J  ... 

„    .  .  maic;  the  present  condition  of 

Scnptures  ,  -7         ,       ...       , 

the  texts  shows  handling  by 

Christians;  and  in  some  cases  it  becomes  difficult  to 
establish  whether  the  author  was  a  Jew  or  a  Christian. 
This  much  is  clear  that  'many  books  without  end' 
existed  by  the  side  of  the  collection  of  Scriptures 
recognized  by  the  Pharisees.  Their  range  was  a  wide 
one,  comprising  history,  philosophy,  poetry,  lyric  and 
didactic,  but  above  all  apocalypse,  that  new  genre 
which  is  represented  in  the  Canon  by  Daniel.  It  is 
evident  that  the  Pharisaic  teachers  knew  them  all  as 
modern  productions.  It  is  true,  Ben  Sira  antedated 
Daniel ;  but  the  sage  was  unwise  enough  to  publish 
his  work  under  his  own  name.  It  is  a  lofty  book 
throughout;  it  is  like  Proverbs,  Koheleth,  and  the 
Psalter  all  rolled  up  into  one;  but  his  indifference  to 
individual  immortality — 'The  life  of  man  is  numbered 
by  days;  but  the  days  of  Israel  are  innumerable'  (37. 
25)  —  pardoned  in  Koheleth  who  impersonated  a  son 
of  David,  made  him  unacceptable  to  the  Pharisees; 
nor  could  they  tolerate  his  assumption  of  the  prophetic 


THREE,  NOT  FOUR 95 

gift    (24.33)    despite   his   'orthodoxy'    in   identifying 
Wisdom  with  the  Torah  of  Moses  (verse  25). 
_,      _.  Pharisaism  had  its  birth  in  the  break 

_  with    the   Hasmonean   dynasty,    and     a 

writing  glorifying  that  dynasty  was 
evidently  the  work  of  their  opponents  which  was  suf- 
ficient to  condemn  it.  Daniel  suited  Pharisaism  as  no 
other  book  might ;  moreover  it  dealt  with  later  history 
in  the  form  of  ancient  visions.  The  line  appears  to  have 
been  drawn  between  Ezra  and  the  Maccabean  revolt : 
classicity  lay  behind  that  line. 

As  for  the  writings  ascribed  to  so  many  ancient 
worthies,  Adam,  Enoch,  Moses,  Ezra — the  so-called 

_.  Pseudepigrapha    (writings  with  fic- 

Pseudepigrapha     ... .       VT.   %       :.  ,  „  ,  . 

titious  titles) — which  were  all  late 

products,  the  contents  and  the  spirit  of  most  of  them 
was  recognized  to  be  moving  farther  and  farther  away 
from  the  lines  of  official  Judaism.  Moreover,  these 
writings  lost  themselves  in  thoughts  which  ultimately 
led  those  who  cherished  them  out  of  Judaism  into  the 
rising  Church.  At  Jabneh,  in  the  year  90  of  the  com- 
mon era,  the  fate  of  Ben  Sira  and  a  few  other  books 
might  hang  in  the  balance;  as  for  the  bulk  of  that 
literature,  a  substantial  part  of  which  was  composed 
in  Greek  and  was  therefore  unknown  in  Palestine, 
while  many  of  these  books  had  their  origin  in  sects  and 
points  of  view  diametrically  at  variance  with  the 
Pharisaic,  they  were  'extraneous  writings'  which  con- 
demned themselves  by  their  character,  though  many 


96  THE  SCRIPTUBES  IN  THE  MAKING 

.  of  the  teachers  were  enmeshed 
The  Decision  against .       ,    .        .,  ., 

„      ,,  _..  .  .  m   their   toils,   until   at  length 

a  Fourth  Division        ....  .     '  . 

Akiba   spoke   the   word   which 

cast  that  entire  body  of  literature  beyond  the  pale  of 
Judaism.  Of  forming  a  fifth  part  of  Scriputres  with 
the  inclusion  of  the  many  'Revelations'  and  'Secrets' 
and  'Assumptions'  and  'Ascensions'  there  never  was 
any  thought.  The  Pharisaic  teachers  may  have 
thought  of  making  of  Ben  Sira  and  a  few  others  a 
fourth  part,  an  appendix  so  to  speak;  they  hesitated 
just  for  a  moment;  but  the  decision  was  quickly 
reached:  Three,  not  Four. 


CHAPTER  VII 
THE  HIGHER  UNITY  OF  THE  TORAH 

It  is  quite  possible  that  the  corn- 
Ezra's  Part  .,       f  /,     t>     i     r  T^-         -r 
•    At-    T.      t.       piler  of  the  Book  of  Kings,  if  we  may 
intheTorah  ...  ,       c  .     '    ,  . 

modify  somewhat  bpmoza  s  conjec- 
ture (chapter  III),  attached  his  work  to  the  earlier 
historical  books,  including  the  Five  Books  of  Moses. 
Thus  the  great  historical  work,  brought  down  to  the 
period  of  the  exile,  would  have  contained  a  complete 
and  consecutive  narrative  of  the  fortunes  of  the  nation 
from  its  very  beginnings.  What  was  the  guiding  prin- 
ciple in  the  construction  of  the  whole  is  quite  clear. 
It  was  not  to  be  a  history  in  the  strict  sense  of  the 
word.  The  last  compiler  as  well  as  his  predecessors 
had  access  to  historical  sources,  annals  of  the  kings, 
contemporary  narratives  or  such  as  were  not  far  re- 
moved from  the  times  dealt  with,  tales  based  on  oral 
traditions,  poems,  and  the  like.  But  the  rich  material 
was  handled  in  a  free  and  sovereign  manner;  it  was 
excerpted  only  so  far  as  suited  the  purpose  of  the 
compilers,  which  was  merely  to  provide  the  framework 
for  the  things  that  really  mattered  from  their  point  of 
view.  A  writer  who  devotes  just  seven  verses  (II 
Kings  14.  23 — 29)  to  the  forty-one  years  of  the  reign 
of  Jeroboam  II,  disposes  in  half  a  verse  of  his 
achievements  as  a  restorer  of  the  Israelitish  territory 


98  THE  SCRIPTURES  IN  THE  MAKING 

to  its  Davidic  extent,  in  another  verse  refers  the 
reader  to  the  annals  of  the  kings  of  Israel  for  the 
details  and  for  the  rest  of  the  king's  mighty  deeds 
in  warfare,  and  fills  up  the  remainder  with  reflec- 
tions and  chronological  notices,  finding  an  opportunity 
for  introducing  a  contemporary  prophet,  is  not  an 
historian.  If  we  bear  in  mind  that  six  chapters 
(I  Kings  17—19,  21;  II  Kings  1,  2)  are  given  to  the 
prophet  Elijah,  at  least  eight  chapters  (II  Kings  2 — 9) 
to  the  prophet  Elisha,  an  entire  chapter  (I  Kings  13)  to 
an  anonymous  prophet,  we  shall  not  err  in  saying  that 
his  chief  concern  is  with  the  prophets.  The  entire  work 
from  Genesis  to  the  end  is  intended  to  illustrate  the 
guidance  of  the  nation  by  prophets  and  inspired  lead- 
ers. The  name  applied  to  the  first  half  of  the  second 
division,  'Former  Prophets'  (chapter  I),  is  indeed  an 
apt  appellation ;  and  the  first  division  might  be  included 
therein  as  the  biography  of  the  first  prophet.  If  Ezra 
had  at  all  any  part  in  the  making  of  the  Torah,  it 
simply  amounted  to  this:  he  detached  the  five  books 
at  the  head  from  the  sequel.  By  this  act  the  Torah 
was  placed  on  that  pedestal  of  eminence  which  it  has 
occupied  ever  since. 

That  Ezra's  Torah  contained  the 
The  Samaritans  „ 

whole  Pentateuch  ought  to  be  beyond 

debate.  Nor  can  it  be  maintaned  that  it  was  a  recent 
literary  production.  Had  Ezra  and  his  associates  been 
those  who  put  the  finishing  hand  to  it,  the  Samaritans, 
whose  secession  dates  from  the  time  of  Nehemiah  (not 


THE  HIGHER  UNITY  OF  THE  TORAH  99 

a  century  later,  as  Josephus  would  have  it),  would 
never  have  received  it;  it  is  indeed  their  only  Scrip- 
ture. There  is  a  trace  in  their  literature  that  they  once 
possessed  Joshua.  If  the  other  books  were  never  in  their 
possession,  as  seems  to  be  the  case,  it  does  not  prove 
that  no  other  collection  was  then  in  existence.  The 
other  books  were  to  them  Judaic  and  contained  as- 
persions on  the  Northern  Kingdom  whose  successors 
they  believed  themselves  to  be.  The  Judeans  were 
willing  to  acknowledge  the  rebukes  of  the  prophets 
who  had  not  spared  them;  the  prophetic  threats 
had  certainly  been  fulfilled.  The  prophets,  even  those 
of  Judah,  had  included  Israel  alike  with  Judah  in  their 
promises  of  the  future;  they  were  pan-Israelites.  But 
the  Samaritans  adhered  to  their  narrower  provincial 
and  sectarian  attitude.  It  is  significant  that  the  Torah 
by  a  slight  alteration  (Deuteronomy  27.4;  the  Sam- 
aritans substitute  'Gerizim'  for  'Ebal')  could  be  made 
acceptable  to  the  seceders.  In  other  words,  even  if 
one  should  grant  that  the  Torah  was  a  J  udaic  product 
—in  all  likelihood  such  was  not  the  case  —  its  injunc- 
tions are  couched  in  terms  so  general  as  to  place  it 
above  the  two  contending  parties. 

_,     .p,  The  Book  found  and  promulgated 

The  Book  Found .  .  .  f  T  .  ,  .  .,  *  , 
.  ,,  _,  in  the  reign  of  Josiah  is  identified 

in  the  Temple  ,       °          J,  ,  ,,,.      .. 

even  by  Graetz  (chapter  III)  with 

Deuteronomy.  But  it  need  not  have  been  any  other 
than  the  same  Torah  which  Ezra  placed  before  the 
people  for  their  ratification.  The  Book  was  really 


100  THE  SCRIPTURES  IN  THE  MAKING 

found;  it  had  actually  been  lost.  In  the  narrative  of 
the  twenty-second  chapter  of  II  Kings,  the  find  is 
brought  into  connection  with  the  restoration  of  the 
Temple  edifice.  The  writer  clearly  conveys  the  impres- 
sion that  the  discovery  was  made  during  the  progress  of 
the  repairs,  when  much  rubbish  was  removed  and 
ancient  layers  were  uncovered;  in  other  words,  that 
the  book  was  found  secreted  not  in  an  open  place  in 
one  of  the  chambers,  but  in  some  spot  in  the  Temple 
walls.  A  most  plausible  explanation,  a  slight  improve- 
ment upon  the  traditional  one  (chapter  II),  would  be 
that  Manasseh  had  the  Temple  copy  consigned  to  its 
stone  entombment  on  the  occasion  of  alterations  in  the 
edifice.  We  possess  a  parallel  in  the  case  of  Gamaliel 
the  Elder.  Shortly  before  the  destruction  of  the  Hero- 
dian  Temple  (which  was  far  from  completed  when 
the  soldiers  of  Titus  set  fire  to  it),  he  is  said  to  have 
immured  beneath  a  layer  a  copy  of  a  translation  of 
the  Book  of  Job.  In  either  instance  the  obvious  aim 
was  to  withdraw  the  offensive  volume  from  public  use. 
Both  Gamaliel  and  Manasseh  shrank  from  off-hand 
destruction;  the  book  might  be  left  to  destroy  itself. 
But  by  the  act  of  sequestration  each  plainly  indicated 
the  disfavor  in  which  he  held  it,  Gamaliel 
because  he  discountenanced  written  translations, 
Manasseh  for  the  reason  that  he  had  set  aside  the 
Torah  in  the  form  presented  by  the  Temple  copy.  It 
was  an  early  case  of  genizah  (chapter  VI) ,  tantamount 
to  rejecting  the  Code  and  declaring  it  ineffective  in 
the  realm. 


THE  HIGHER  UNITY  OF  THE  TORAH         101 

Manasseh  plainly  overturned 
Hezekiah  s  Religious   ^,       ...  I-/TT      ,-i 

the  religious  policy  of  Hezekiah. 
Policy  Overturned  by  ~  r  ,  ?  •  i  •  r  T  j  u 
__  (Jt  the  lew  pious  kings  of  Judah 

JVlfln3.SS6il  .  •       i     t 

three  are  singled  out  as  per- 
fect: David,  Hezekiah,  and  Josiah  (Sirach49.4).  Hez- 
ekiah is  said  to  have  removed  the  high  places  and  to 
have  broken  down  the  sacred  pillars  and  posts  (II 
Kings  18.4).  The  reformation  proved  abortive  and 
Josiah  was  compelled  to  re-introduce  these  measures 
on  even  a  vaster  scale,  because  in  the  interim  Manasseh 
and  Amon  had  restored  the  conditions  which  had 
prevailed  before  Hezekiah,  and  probably  with  much 
exaggeration.  The  Anglican  Reformation  of  the  six- 
teenth century  offers  an  analogy.  The  short  reign  of 
Mary  the  Catholic  was  sufficient  to  undo  the  reform- 
ing steps  taken  by  her  predecessors,  and  when  Eliza- 
beth ascended  the  throne  these  had  to  be  largely 
retraced.  The  interval  of  time  between  Hezekiah  and 
Josiah  was  a  much  longer  one — more  than  half  a 
century.  In  England  the  Scriptures  in  the  vernacular 
marked  the  progress  of  the  reformation,  and  during 
Mary's  reign  the  public  use  of  them  in  the  churches 
was  forbidden.  In  Palestine,  in  those  far-off  days,  it 
was  the  Torah  of  Moses  in  the  form  of  the  Book  found 
by  the  priest  Hilkiah  that  had  its  turns.  Manasseh 
had  repudiated  it  and  well-nigh  succeeded  in  destroy- 
ing it.  Josiah,  in  restoring  it  as  the  law  of  the  realm, 
put  the  crown  of  achievement  upon  the  undertaking 
of  Hezekiah. 


102  THE  SCRIPTURES  IN  THE  MAKING 

T    •  1.1    f      u         It   is    not     altogether    true    that 
Josiah's  Torah      .  ,  .  ,6    . 

the  abuses  which  these  kings  re- 
moved are  dealt  with  exclusively  in  Deuteron- 
omy. Thus  the  putting  down  of  the  worship  of  Baal 
and  other  gods,  including  sun,  moon,  and  heavenly 
constellations, squares  with  the  Second  Commandment 
(Exodus  20.3;  compare  also  34.14);  the  pillars  which 
were  broken  down  are  proscribed  in  Leviticus  26.1; 
the  'sodomites'  are  alluded  to  in  the  same  book  (18. 
22),  similarly  the  Molech  worship  by  causing  children 
to  pass  through  the  fire  (20.2-5)  and  divining  by  a 
ghost  or  familiar  spirit  (19.31;  20.6,  27);  the  word 
gillulim  for  'idols'  occurs  in  Leviticus  26.30.  Certainly 
the  celebration  of  the  Passover  is  enjoined  in  all  the 
codes  of  the  Torah. 

The  law  of  the  single  Sanctuary,  to 
The  Law  of  the     ,  .     ,  .    .      , . ,      ' ' 

be  sure,  is  characteristic  of  the  Code 

^^  of  Deuteronomy.  In  chapter  12  the 
people  are  commanded  to  destroy  all  the  (sacred)  places 
of  the  Canaanites  together  with  their  altars,  pillars, 
poles, and  images;  they  are  not  to  have  a  plurality  of 
sanctuaries  for  the  worship  of  the  Lord  (high  places ; 
the  word  so  frequent  in  the  historical  books  is  never- 
theless avoided,  though  Leviticus  26.30  has  it),  but  one 
ceYftral  place  where  alone  sacrifices  may  be  offered. 
This  law  is  to  become  effective  after  the  period  of  the 
conquest,  when  the  land  shall  have  been  pacified  and 
distributed.  Provision  is  made  for  the  killing  of  cattle 
for  ordinary,  not  sacrificial,  purposes  anywhere  in  the 


THE  HIGHER  UNITY  OF  THE  TORAH         103 

land,  the  meat  to  be  consumed  by  the  unclean  and  the 
clean;  only  the  blood  must  be  poured  out  upon  the 
ground.  The  lawgiver  clearly  repeals  the  Law  of 
Leviticus  17  which  was  designed  solely  for  the  con- 
ditions of  camp  life,when  all  animals  might  be  brought 
to  the  Tabernacle  and  offered  as  peace-offerings. 
Naturally  this  mode  of  procedure  would  be  unworkable 
in  the  settled  conditions  of  life  across  the  Jordan.  It 
seems  also  that  in  the  plains  of  Moab,  when  the  tribes 
of  Reuben  and  Gad  and  the  half-tribe  of  Manasseh 
had  occupied  the  rich  cattle  lands  of  Jazer  and  Gilead 
east  of  the  Jordan,  there  developed  great  laxity,  every 
man  doing  'whatsoever  was  right  in  his  own  eyes'. 
It  was  therefore  perfectly  possible  that  the  Torah  of 
Josiah  contained  beside  Deuteronomy  other  books  of 
the  Pentateuch;  in  fact  the  Deuteronomic  law  is 
unintelligible  without  that  in  Leviticus  17,  and  this 
chapter  is  linked  to  the  whole  of  Leviticus  and  to  those 
parts  of  Exodus  and  Numbers  in  which  the  Taber- 
nacle is  mentioned.  If  the  Book  found  in  the  Temple 
had  Deuteronomy  in  it,  it  must  also  have  had  the 
three  preceding  books,  including  the  very  portions 
which  are  assigned  by  the  modern  school  to  the  Priests' 
Code. 

But  the  law  of  Deuteronomy  12  cannot  very  well  be 

brought  into  consonance  with  Exodus 
Exodus  20.21   _„  _; ,      ,  .  ,   .    ,,     .  ,     ,     ,.          ,, 
20.21,  which  is  the  introduction  to  the 

Book  of  the  Covenant  containing  the  'Words'  and 
'Ordinances'  of  chapters  21,  22,  23  (see  24.  3-8).  'An 


104  THE  SCRIPTURES  IN  THE  MAKING 

altar  of  earth  (the  succeeding  verse  allows  the  choice 
of  unhewn  stones  as  material  for  the  construction  of 
the  altar)  thou  shalt  make  unto  Me,  and  shalt  sacrifice 
thereon  thy  burnt-offerings,  and  thy  peace-offerings, 
thy  sheep,  and  thine  oxen ;  in  every  place  where  I  cause 
My  name  to  be  mentioned  I  will  come  to  thee  and 
bless  thee.'  The  blessing  follows  the  sacrifice  as  a  sign 
that  it  has  been  accepted,  and  is  invoked  by  the  priests 
('so  shall  they  put  My  name  upon  the  children  of 
Israel,  and  I  will  bless  them',  Numbers  6.27). 

,_  .  A  ,  .^  Contrast  Deuteronomy  12.  13, 
Contrasted  with  ™  .  ,  ,  ir  ,  '  „ 

_.  Take  heed  to  thyself  that  thou  offer 

Deuteronomy  „    . 

not  thy  burnt-offerings  in  every  place 

that  thou  seest;  but  in  the  place 
which  the  Lord  shall  choose  in  one  of  thy  tribes,  there 
shalt  thou  offer  thy  burnt-offerings.'  These  words  are 
taken  to  be  a  pointed  protest  against  the  law  of  Exod- 
us. In  a  manner  they  ignore  the  qualification  in  the 
other  law.  It  is  not  every  place  that  a  man  may  see 
fit  to  consecrate,  but  only  such  places  as  have  been 
hallowed  through  a  manifestation  of  the  Deity  where- 
by He  causes  His  name  to  be  mentioned,  like  Bethel 
where  God  appeared  unto  the  patriarch  Jacob  when  he 
fled  from  Esau  (Genesis  35.1;  28.13),  Penuel  where 
Jacob  wrestled  with  an  angel  and  saw  God  face  to  face 
(32.25-32),  Gilgal  where  the  Lord  announced  to 
Joshua  that  He  had  rolled  away  the  reproach  of  Egypt 
from  off  Israel  (Joshua  5.9),  and  so  on. 


THE  HIGHER  UNITY  OF  THE  TORAH         105 

_,  .  Now,   it  is  maintained   that 

Both  may  have  been    ,  ,. 

•  »  •  i_»  m  ,_  these  two  contradictory  laws 
in  Josiah  s  Torah  , ,  ,  .  J.  . 

could  not  have  been  found  in  the 

Book  of  Josiah.  As  a  matter  of  fact  they  co-exist  quite 
peaceably  in  our  Pentateuch.  The  so-called  compiler 
found  no  difficulty  in  reconciling  them.  He  and  the 
generations  that  followed  him  took  note  of  the  fact 
that  the  law  in  Exodus  does  not  speak  of  altars  in  the 
plural,  but  of  an  altar  in  the  singular,  which  may  be 
erected  now  in  this  place  now  in  that,  now  in  Shiloh 
now  in  Jerusalem,  not  at  one  and  the  same  time,  but 
successively.  That  was  certainly  the  understanding 
of  Jeremiah  (7.12),  who  names  Shiloh  as  the  place 
where  the  Lord  caused  His  name  to  dwell  'at  the  first', 
of  Asaph  who  sees  in  the  destruction  of  Shiloh  in  the 
Philistine  wars  an  act  of  the  provoked  Deity,  who 
'forsook  the  tabernacle  of  Shiloh,  the  tent  which  He 
had  made  to  dwell  among  men ;  He  abhorred  the  tent 
of  Joseph,  and  chose  not  the  tribe  of  Ephraim;  but 
chose  the  tribe  of  Judah,  the  mount  Zion  which  He 
loved;  and  He  built  His  sanctuary  like  the  heights, 
like  the  earth  which  He  hath  founded  for  ever;  He 
chose  David  also  His  servant,  to  be  shepherd  over 
Jacob  His  people,  and  Israel  His  inheritance'  (Psalm 
78.60,  67-71).  Thus  both  Shiloh,  where  Hannah 
poured  out  her  soul  and  dedicated  her  son  Samuel  to 
the  ministry  of  the  Lord,  whither  men  went  up  to 
worship  and  to  sacrifice  from  year  to  year,  and  Jeru- 
salem, which  David  conquered  from  the  Jebusite 


106  THE  SCRIPTURES  IN  THE  MAKING 

and  made  the  capital  of  Israel  and  Judah  united, were, 
each  in  its  time,  acknowledged  as  lawful  sanctuaries. 
The  Torah  of  a  set  purpose  is  general  in  its  phrase- 
ology, and  the  law  of  Deuteronomy  as  well  as  that  of 
Exodus  might  be  cited  at  Shiloh  by  Eli  or  at  Jerusalem 
by  Zadok  or  Hezekiah.  It  was  reserved  for  the  Sam- 
aritans to  re-write  the  passage  in  Exodus  so  as  to  read : 
'In  the  place  where  I  have  caused  My  name  to  be 
mentioned'. 

But  we  will  grant  that  the  two 
They  must  have  ~  ,  ,.  TTT  ,  , 

Codes  disagree.  We  contend,  how- 
been  there  ...u  *  u  j  *u  D  i  <•  T  •  t, 

ever,  that  had  the  Book  of  Josiah 

been  confined  to  the  Deuteronomic  Code  alone,  as  is 
generally  maintained,  it  would  have  met  with  instant 
opposition  of  a  nature  to  preclude  acceptance.  The 
priests  of  the  country  sanctuaries  might  have  pointed 
to  the  Exodus  legislation.  It  was  obviously  imperative 
to  mark  the  rival  code  as  repealed.  This  could  be 
accomplished  only  by  having  the  two  codes  in  one  and 
the  same  book.  Both  were  allowed  to  stand  as  Mosa- 
ic; only  the  Exodus  Code  was  dated  from  the  begin- 
ning of  the  wanderings,  it  was  given  at  Sinai  (Horeb), 
while  the  Deuteronomic  Code  was  the  final  legislation 
set  forth  in  the  plains  of  Moab  (see  Deuteronomy  28. 
69)  .Where  they  differed, the  Second  Law  was  manifestly 
in  force.  A  body  of  narrative  became  necessary  to 
indicate  that  there  was  a  sequence  in  time.  Hence  the 
two  Codes  must  have  been  encased  in  a  framework 


THE  HIGHER  UNITY  OF  THE  TORAH         107 

of  history,  which,  of  course,  means  that  Josiah's  Book 
resembled  our  Pentateuch. 

We  shall  go  even  farther.    It  is  uni- 
Both  Codes  „  .     ,     , 

-.  versally  recognized  that  Deuteronomy 

Co-existed      ,  _  , ,  '   .  . 

12.13  points  a  finger,  so  to  speak,  at 

Exodus  20.24.  Now  Wellhausen  has  remarked  that 
the  latter  passage  'looks  almost  like  a  protest  against 
the  equipment  of  the  Temple  of  Solomon.'  His  op- 
ponent Hoffmann  concedes  the  possibility  that  after 
the  secession  under  Jeroboam  I,  when  in  the  North  the 
Jerusalem  Temple  ceased  to  be  considered  as  the 
central  sanctuary,  plural  sanctuaries  or  altars  were 
regarded  as  lawful.  It  may  therefore  be  argued  as 
plausible  that  the  Exodus  passage  is  a  pointed  protest 
against  Deuteronomy  12.13.  Not  because  it  knows  no 
better,  because  that  was  the  undisputed  wont,  does 
the  Exodus  law  pronounce  for  plural  sanctuaries; 
rather,  because  it  is  well  aware  of  the  contending 
doctrine  of  the  single  sanctuary,  does  it  set  itself 
deliberately  against  it.  Neither  the  opposition  to 
plural  sanctuaries  nor  the  advocacy  of  them  was  some- 
thing sprung  upon  the  nation  of  a  sudden ;  each  had 
its  history,  its  starting-point  and  culmination.  When 
Jeremiah,  with  Deuteronomy  before  him,  in  a  mood 
of  despair,  points  out  the  futility  of  the  'pen  of  the 
scribes'  (8.8;  see  3.10),  he  is  confronting  a  contesting 
opinion  which  just  as  ardently  emphasizes  its  utility; 
or  when  he  gives  utterance  to  the  thought  that  the  Mo- 
saic legislation  did  not  concern  itself  with  the  sacrificial 


108  THE  SCRIPTURES  IN  THE  MAKING 

cult  (7.22),  he  is  opposed  by  teachers  who,  on  the 
contrary,  maintain  that  it  was  an  intergal  part  of  the 
ancient  law.  Similarly,  the  Exodus  Code  and  the 
Deuteronomic  Law  must  be  understood  as  rivals  facing 
each  other  and  disputing  each  the  authority  of  the 
other. 

_          _  The  Torah  of  Josiah  most  probably  had 

Hosea  8.12     ,        ,     ,     .      J 

them  both,  just  as  we  have  them  to-day. 

But  at  some  period  in  the  background  they  must  have 
existed  by  the  side  of  each  other  as  indepedent  versions 
of  the  Mosaic  Torah.  From  Joshua  24.26  and  I  Sam- 
uel 10.25  we  know  that  the  ancient  shrines  had  their 
archives.  In  each  there  must  have  been  a  copy  of  the 
Torah,  here  shorter  and  there  longer,  alike  in  subject- 
matter,  but  with  differences  in  detail  according  to  the 
attitude  of  the  local  priesthood.  'Though  I  write  for 
him',  Hosea  makes  the  Lord  say  (8.12),  'never  so  many 
Torahs  (this  is  probably  the  sense  of  the  passage), 
they  are  accounted  as  a  stranger's',  as  those  of  one  no 
one  will  in  any  wise  heed.  Hosea  confronts  a  people 
steeped  in  sin,  'swearing  and  lying,  and  killing  and 
stealing,  and  committing  adultery',  breaking  all  the 
commandments,  as  we  should  say,  yet  scrupulous  in 
presenting  their  sin-offerings  at  the  behest  of  their 
priests.  There  are  altars  enough  in  the  land,  there  is 
no  dearth  of  sumptuous  sanctuaries;  but  'Ephraim 
hath  multiplied  altars — to  sin.' 

_  _,  Humanity  has  not  changed  much 

Hosea  s  Torah      .  .,          2i. 

since  those  days:  with  punctiliousness 


THE  HIGHER  UNITY  OF  THE  TORAH         109 

in  outward,  ritual  observances  there  may  be  found 
acquiescence  in  all  the  wrongs  of  the  social  order  and 
a  deadened  conscience  in  regard  to  the  things  that  re- 
ally matter,  'truth,  and  mercy,  and  knowledge  of  God.' 
Hosea,  like  Jeremiah,  recognizes  the  futility  of  a  writ- 
ten Law  which  has  not  sunk  into  the  heart.  He  in- 
veighs against  the  exaggerated  value  put  upon 
'Temple  piety.'  But  it  is  preposterous  to  maintain  that 
the  written  Torah  or  torahs,  to  which  the  prophet 
refers  as  existing,  contained  nothing  but  moral  duties. 
The  Decalogue,  or  Ten  Commandments,  in  which  the 
absence  of  all  concern  for  sacrificial  worship  and  the 
like  stands  out  in  marked  contrast  to  the  rest  of  the 
Torah,  the  modern  school  would  have  us  believe,  dates 
from  a  period  later  than  Hosea's;  the  Deuteronomic 
Code,  in  which  ritual  prescriptions  are  certainly  not 
wanting,  was  a  compromise  between  prophets  and 
priests;  yet  Hosea  had  behind  him  a  written  Torah 
with  just  the  moral  commandments  in  it  which  so 
singularly  characterize  the  'later'  Decalogue!  No,  we 
say,  Hosea's  Torah  could  not  have  been  different  in 
scope  and  contents  and  origin  from  the  Codes  now 
imbedded  in  the  Pentateuch. 

For  it  is  neither  all  ritual  nor  all  mo- 
The  Codes          ,.  .  ,  ., 

_T  ,,  ,       rality  that  meets  us  in  any  ot  them. 

Half-moral       ~  ..     .  .,,     ., 

-._.  ,,  .,  ,  Ouite  in  consonance  with  the  three 
Half-ritual  ,  .  .,  .  ..  ,  ,.,  ,  . , 

strands  of  the  spiritual  life  of  the  na- 
tion, both  in  their  concurrency  and  in  their  interlacing 
(chapter  IV) ,  no  part  entering  into  the  make-up  of  the 


110  THE  SCRIPTURES  IN  THE  MAKING 

Torah,  however  priestly  in  origin,  could  escape  the 
influences  from  the  other  two  spheres  acting  as  a  check 
self-imposed.  Both  the  Exodus  Code  and  the  Deute- 
ronomic  were  intended  for  the  people  at  large,  men, 
women,  and  children.  'These  are  the  ordinances  which 
thou  shalt  set  before  them'  (Exodus  21.1).  The  'words' 
and  the  'ordinances'  are  told  to  the  people,  and  they 
with  one  voice  signify  their  acceptance.  Then  the 
Book  of  the  Covenant  is  written  and  read  to  the  people, 
and  the  people  once  more  declare  their  acceptance 
(24.3-7).  The  Deuteronomic  Code  is  a  farewell  ora- 
tion addressed  to  the  people,  it  is  the  'Torah  which 
Moses  set  before  the  children  of  Israel'  (Deuteronomy 
4.44).  The  chief  concern  of  both  is  to  deal  with  mat- 
ters that  relate  to  the  people  directly,  the  body  of  civil 
and  criminal  law  ('ordinances')  and  moral  injunctions 
('words').  Altars,  sacrifices,  dues  to  the  sanctuaries 
or  the  priesthood  are  merely  touched  upon  casually. 
But  these  things  are  there,  while  detailed  instructions 
concerning  them  are  reserved  for  those  whom  they 
concern.  The  Deuteronomic  Code  treats  of  these 
matters  even  somewhat  more  fully  than  the  parallel 
Code,  for  the  reason  that  the  lawgiver  must  needs 
show  the  bearing  upon  them  of  the  institution  of  the 
single  sanctuary.  Thus  the  disposal  of  tithes  and  first- 
lings and  first  fruits  is  considered  (Deuteronomy  14. 
22 — 15.23),  exactly  as  in  connection  with  the  central- 
ized sanctuary  the  cycle  of  the  pilgrimage  festivals 
(16.1 — 17),  the  supreme  court  of  appeals  (17.8 — 13), 


THE  HIGHER  UNITY  OF  THE  TOR  AH         HI 

the  cities  of  refuge  (19.1 — 13)  are  dealt  with.  But 
in  regard  to  leprosy,  a  cross-reference,  so  to  speak,  to 
the  Priests'  Torah  is  indulged  in  (24.8),  and  in 
chapter  14  the  torah  concerning  the  animals  that  may 
and  may  not  be  eaten  is  excerpted  from  Leviticus  1 1 , 
where,  however,  a  much  fuller  treatment  is  accorded 
the  subject. 

--.    „  The  important  point  is  that  ritual 

No  Hostility  „,,    ^ .      ... 

„.      .  matters  are  not  ignored.  What  is  still 

more  important  is  that  no  hostile  at- 
titude is  taken  to  them,  as  some  of  the  uncompromising 
prophets  might  expect  the  lawgiver  to  adopt.  For  he 
is  priest-prophet.  He  believes  in  the  whole  of  the 
religious  life,in  an  organized  piety  which  leaves  nothing 
undone:  the  Temple  and  the  sacrificial  worship  are 
there  and  they  require  to  be  regulated,  that  in  no  wise 
may  idolatry  creep  in;  but  so  is  also  a  civic  life  gov- 
erned by  'righteous  ordinances'  and  the  deeper  human- 
ity which  rests  not  upon  law  courts  and  institutions 
but  upon  those  eternal  Shalts  and  Shalt-nots  which 
none  but  God  can  dictate. 

And  the  Priests'  Code,  which  is 
The  Priests'  Code  ,      ,A  ,  ,  .  ,    r      ,, 

~     .  .      ,,  for   Aaron  and  his  sons  ,  for  the 

Contains  the  .  ,      .  .  „      ,    , 

,,      ....  priesthood,  circumstantially  deal- 

Morahties  .  ...      „       ' 

ing  as  it  must  with  all  that  they 

are  charged  to  do,  with  all  their  punctilious  duties  in 
and  about  the  sanctuary,  is  just  as  strongly  permeated 
with  what  we  may  call  the  moralities.  The  two  highest 
commandments,  the  love  of  God  and  the  love  of  one's 


112  THE  SCRIPTURES  IN  THE  MAKING 

neighbor,  are  distributed  among  the  two  codes  of  the 
Torah,  the  Deuteronomic  and  the  Levitical  (Deute- 
ronomy 6.5;  Leviticus  19.18).  The  nineteenth  chapter 
of  Leviticus  is  a  fair  specimen  of  what  the  Torah  has 
been  from  its  very  beginnings  and  what  it  has  meant 
to  the  religion  which  is  founded  upon  it.  It  refuses  to 
distinguish  between  ritual  and  moral.  Honoring  father 
and  mother  and  keeping  the  sabbaths,  putting  away 
idols  and  images  and  refraining  from  eating  sacred 
meat  on  the  third  day  after  the  victim  has  been  offered, 
charitable  dealings  with  the  poor  and  respect  for  the 
property  and  feelings  of  great  and  small,  the  statutes 
concerning  diverse  seeds  or  intercourse  with  a  bond- 
maid designated  for  another  man,  treating  the  fruits 
of  a  newly  planted  tree  as  forbidden  during  the  first 
three  years,  injunctions  against  the  practice  of  divi- 
nation or  rounding  the  corners  of  head  and  beard  or 
making  incisions  in  the  body;  the  prohibition  of  har- 
lotry, the  discountenancing  of  familiar  spirits;  the 
commands  to  honor  the  aged  and  to  love  the  stranger; 
the  insistence  on  just  measures  —  all  these  things 
are  there  with  no  attempt  at  classification.  Side  by 
side  with  the  chapters  dealing  with  the  regulations  of 
the  priesthood  and  their  physical  qualifications  or  with 
the  cycle  of  holy  seasons,  and  close  upon  the  ruling  of 
how  a  person  cursing  the  Name  shall  be  punished,  we 
have  in  the  twenty-fifth  chapter  of  this  'priestly'book 
the  agrarian  laws  and  the  institution  of  the  year  of  the 
jubilee,  when  'liberty  shall  be  proclaimed  throughout 


THE  HIGHER  UNITY  OF  THE  TORAH         113 

the  land  unto  all  the  inhabitants  thereof,'  that  which 
has  been  called  'utopian',  and  which  therefore  was  not 
some  customary  law  inherited,  but  the  outflow  of  a 
great  legislative  mind  wishing  to  create  an  'ideal 
republic'. 

OM_    m  ,  ,,  The  Torah  of  which  Hosea 

The  Torah  of  Moses    .  ...      .  .    .  . 

knew  could  not  but  have  been 

likewise  half-ritual,  half-moral,  half-legalistic  and  half- 
idealistic.  And  that  Torah  was  God's,  written  by  Him. 
Which  of  course  is  the  meaning  of  the  designation 
of  the  Torah  as  Mosaic.  This  is  indeed  the  point  upon 
which  the  narrative  framework  both  in  Exodus  and  in 
Deuteronomy  is  quite  unanimous  and  which  there- 
fore must  rest  on  a  common  tradition  such  as  was 
universally  accepted  in  most  ancient  times.  We  may 
put  it  in  the  following  fashion.  Men  were  wont  to 
speak  of  God's  Law  given  to  or  by  the  hand  of  Moses. 
How  came  it  to  be  given  to  Moses  and  not  to  the  people 
direct?  And  the  uniform  answer  was:  After  the  deliver- 
ance from  Egypt,  the  Lord  summoned  the  people  to 
His  desert  mount;  there  He  revealed  Himself  to  them; 
there  in  the  presence  of  the  whole  concourse  He  ad- 
dressed Moses,  so  that  the  people  learned  to  believe 
in  him  as  the  true  prophet,  that  is,  spokesman  of  the 
Deity ;  there  they  heard  the  Voice  piercing  the  darkness 
and  thundering  forth  the  Ten  Commandments,  the 
groundwork  of  the  Law  (according  the  rabbis,  only 
the  first  two  Commandments  were  heard  by  the  people) ; 
but  awed  by  the  manifestation  of  the  Divine  Glory, 


114  THE  SCRIPTURES  IN  THE  MAKING 

they  withdrew  and  delegated  Moses  to  ascend  the 
mount  and  receive  for  their  instruction  the  whole  of 
the  Torah  and  the  Commandments  which  God  had 
with  Him  in  writing  (Exodus  19.9,19;  20.18-21 ;  24.12; 
Deuteronomy  5.19-28). 

„,.,  We  have  no  reason  to  discredit 

What  it  was  like     ..   4     ...        _,,  .,      . 

this  tradition.   There  was  a  Mosaic 

Torah  which  was  code  and  constitution,  with  regula- 
tions for  national  and  individual  conduct,  with  instruc- 
tions to  the  priests  concerning  their  duties,  all  encased 
in  a  framework  narrating  the  events  when  the  whole  or 
portions  thereof  'came  down*  and  a  prefatory  history 
of  the  patriarchs  who  were  the  first  teachers  of  the  'way 
of  the  Lord'.  Copies  of  that  Torah  were  executed  and 
kept  in  all  the  shrines,  each  a  version  or  excerpt  as 
conditions  of  time  and  place  warranted,  with  such 
variations  as  all  texts  are  subject  to  in  the  course  of 
transmission  and  with  other  modifications  intended 
to  keep  pace  with  the  development  of  the  national  life. 
Pluralists  and  advocates  of  the  single  sanctuary  alike 
made  their  contributions ;  both  believed  that  they  were 
acting  in  the  spirit  of  Moses  and  both  might  cite  tra- 
dition in  support  of  their  contention.  It  is  quite  possible 
that  the  lawgiver  at  one  time  conceded  plurality  of 
sanctuaries  and  at  another  counseled  the  establish- 
ment of  the  single  sanctuary.  His  single  thought  was 
to  safeguard  the  worship  of  the  One  God,  the  God  of 
the  fathers.  He  may  have  felt,  and  the  pluralists  with 
him,  that  the  struggle  with  the  Canaanitic  culture  and 


THE  HIGHER  UNITY  OF  THE  TORAH         115 

religion  necessitated  the  transformation  of  every  in- 
digenous shrine  into  a  sanctuary  of  the  Lord.  Thus, 
the  lawgiver  reasoned,  the  idolatrous  equipment  and 
mode  of  worship  which,  as  the  sequel  only  too  well 
proved,  had  a  fascinaton  for  Israel,  might  be  uprooted. 
Or  again  he  foresaw  the  futility  of  this  measure  and 
made  provision  for  centralizing  the  worship  in  one 
place  so  soon  as  that  was  feasible.  He  certainly  thought 
that  the  transition  period  would  be  a  short  one,  when 
complete  pacification  would  ensue.  But  when  the  time 
came  under  David  and  political  centralization  seemed 
to  pave  the  way  for  religious  unity,  when  the  Temple 
had  been  erected  on  the  site  of  a  Jebusite  threshing- 
floor,  the  North  seceded  and  in  defiance  of  Jerusalem 
pursued  its  policy  of  decentralization,and  even  in  Judah 
the  time  was  not  quite  ripe  for  the  execution  of  the 
last  will  of  Moses  until  well-nigh  the  end. 

,„.._..  ,        The    great    zealot-prophet 

Special  Dispensation     _.,..  ,  ,.          ,, r      .  . 

Elijah,  according  to  the  script- 
ural account,  betook  himself  to  the  mountain  of  God, 
the  place  of  the  primeval  revelation,  and  there  poured 
out  his  soul  before  the  Lord,  grieving  over  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  'altars'  of  the  Lord  in  the  time  of  Ahab  and 
Jezebel.  He  met  the  prophets  of  Baal  on  mount 
Carmel  and  there  restored  the  altar  of  the  Lord  which 
had  been  broken  down.  According  to  the  rabbis,  he 
acted  by  virtue  of  a  'special  dispensation.'  We  need 
not  take  that  literally.  In  the  sense  in  which  the  rab- 
bis understood  it,  it  means  merely  an  attempt  at 


116  THE  SCRIPTURES  IN  THE  MAKING 

harmonizing  the  prophet's  conduct  with  the  Deute- 
ronomiclaw  which  forbids  altars  beside  the  one  in 
Jerusalem.  But  it  is  supremely  true  if  we  take  it  in  a 
higher  sense.  It  was  a  time  of  'halting  between  two 
opinions'.  The  popular  religion  was  an  intermixture 
of  Canaanism  and  Mosaism.  It  was  not  a  question  of 
merely  purifying  the  sanctuaries  of  the  Lord,  of  putting 
down  this  or  that  idolatorus  service.  The  question 
at  issue  was:  the  Lord  or  Baal.  Baalism  threatened 
to  submerge  the  very  name  of  the  Lord.  And  the 
prophet  rightly  placed  himself  upon  the  position  of 
the  North,  the  attitude  of  those  who,  while  true  to  the 
Lord,  could  not  entertain  the  notion  of  centralization 
which  at  that  time  would  simply  have  meant  leaving 
the  Lord  in  possession  of  the  central  altar  and  suffering 
all  the  others  to  remain  in  the  hands  of  Baal  and  all 
that  Baal  worship  connoted.  Indeed,  it  was  a  'special 
dispensation',  justified  in  the  circumstances  of  the  peri- 
od and  the  situation  in  which  the  adherents  of  Mosaism 
found  themselves  in  the  North, with  Phoenicia  as  next- 
door  neighbor  and  a  Phoenician  princess  the  consort 
of  the  king  of  Israel. 

_...  The  Codes  or  narratives  of  the 

Differences  ,-,  ..„ 

n  ^     •     j      Pentateuch  may  present  differen- 

O  veremphasized  ...         „ 

ces  which  the  Torah  of  Moses  must 

have  assumed  in  the  course  of  its  application  to  the 
historical  situations.  These  differences  were  not  dis- 
covered yesterday.  For  ages  the  students  of  the  Torah 
have  been  kept  busy  explaining  them.  There  is  not  a 


THE  HIGHER  UNITY  OF  THE  TORAH         117 

difficulty  or  incongruity,  which  modern  students  trace 
to  the  manner  in  which  independent  'documents' 
were  welded  together,  that  is  not  noticed  by  the  Jewish 
commentators  of  medieval  times.  They  meet  these 
difficulties  in  their  way,  which  may  or  may  not  be 
ours.  For  one  thing  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that 
there  is  a  proneness  to  overemphasize  the  disagree- 
ments. These  naturally  attract  attention  first  of  all. 

_.  ,  ,,          Scholars  who  have  occasion  to 

The  Analogy  of  the  .  x      r 

IT         %**•!•  •  compare  manuscripts  ot  an  an- 

Lower'  Criticism        .    f,      ,  ,  ,     .,    . 

cient  book  are  first  struck  by  their 

differences,  which  are  called  variants,  and  that  manu- 
script which  is  richest  in  such  variants  is  studied  in 
preference  to  others.  Yet  a  closer  examination  will 
bring  to  light  the  fact  that  the  most  of  them  represent 
idiosyncracies  of  certain  scribes,  and  that  so  soon  as 
we  understand  their  rationale — some  are  quite  ir- 
rational— or  succeed  in  'explaining'  them,  they  cease 
to  be  variations.  This  business  is  called  textual,  or 
'the  lower',  criticism.  But  a  textual  critic  of  the  right 
sort  is  not  astonished  at  all  when  different  copies  of 
one  and  the  same  text  yield  different  readings.  That 
is  the  inevitable  fate  of  any  text  circulating  in  a  num- 
ber of  copies  and  again  and  again  multiplied  by 
transcription.  The  writing  hand  was  not  like  the  setter 
of  movable  type.  The  printing-press  stereotypes  a 
compositor's  error ;  it  is  the  same  in  all  the  thousands 
of  copies  struck  off.  The  writing  hand  obviously  is  led 
into  all  sorts  of  by-ways.  The  astonishing  thing  is 


118  THE  SCRIPTURES  IN  THE  MAKING 

that  manuscripts,  which  have  hundreds  of  variants, 
should  at  all  agree  in  the  main,  and  agree  they  must 
or  we  should  not  call  them  copies  of  the  same  book. 
'The  real  text',  says  the  critic  Bentley,  'does  not  now 
(since  the  originals  have  been  so  long  lost)  lie  in  any 
manuscript  or  edition,  but  is  dispersed  in  them  all.' 
We  may  well  carry  this  wise  principle  over  from 

the  domain  of  the  'lower'  to  that  of 
Applied  to  the  ,  ,,.  ......  ,.  ,  ,  ,  .^, 

'TT    h    '  higher  criticism,  which  deals  with 

the  manner  in  which  a  'compiler' 
brought  together  originally  independent,  but  parallel 
works.  If  these  were  different,  why  should  they  not 
show  disagreements?  The  astonishing  thing  is  that 
they  may  still  be  called  'parallel',  that  they  agree  at 
all.  If  the  two  creation  stories  at  the  opening  of  Gen- 
esis were  independent  accounts,  they  cannot  help 
diverging  in  the  sequence  of  the  acts  of  creation  or  in 
other  details.  But  the  striking  point  is  that  they  both 
teach  that  God  is  Creator  and  man  a  creature  of 
God,  that  both  start  with  the  same  premisses  of  a 
primeval  slimy  watery  mass,  both  deal  with  the  rela- 
tion between  animals  and  man,  both  accord  to  man  in 
the  first  world  period  the  fruit  of  trees,  and  not  meat 
as  food.  It  is  an  exaggerated  position  held  by  some 
moderns  that  certain  patriarchal  stories  in  Genesis  are 
based  upon  the  notion  that  the  Israelites  never  went 
down  to  Egypt.  What  these  narratives  mean  to  bring 
out  is  the  title  to  the  land,  which  the  fathers  traversed 
and  took  possession  of  long  before  the  children  migra- 


THE  HIGHER  UNITY  OF  THE  TORAH         119 

ted  into  it.  Not  only  in  the  Pentateuch,  but  all  through 
the  Scriptures  the  exodus  from  Egypt  is  a  basic  event 
with  which  the  whole  of  the  beginnings  of  the  national 
life  is  brought  into  connection.  And  so  it  is  with  the 
Codes.  Modifications,  differences  may  be  noted;  but 
when  all  of  these  have  been  taken  into  account,  there 
is  a  residue  common  to  one  Code  with  the  other,  and 
the  agreement  covers  not  only  essentials,  but  extends 
to  the  very  language.  The  presumption  is  therefore 
forced  upon  us  that  we  are  dealing  with  a  body  of  law 
and  tradition  antedating  the  divergences  of  the  dis- 
parate versions  and  ascending  to  the  Mosaic  age. 
Whether  the  Pentateuch  as  we  have  it  is  the  Mosaic 
Torah  may  be  a  matter  for  debate.  That  it  has  the 
Mosaic  Torah,  which  is  neither  in  this  strand  nor  in  the 
other  but  'dispersed  in  them  all',  must  be  the  conclu- 
sion of  sound  criticism. 

The  Torah  may  be  a  composite 
The  Higher  Unity         ,      T.  ,    ,         ..       .  .. 

°     .  work.    It  lacks  unity  of  the  me- 

or  the  Torah  ,      .    .  T,  ,  . 

chamcal  sort.  It  has  unity,  never- 
theless, and  that  in  a  much  higher  sense.  We  have 
observed  how  it  keeps  itself  above  the  contending  par- 
ties. It  takes  sides  neither  with  Judah  nor  with  Joseph. 
North  and  South  might  own  it,  pluralists  and  the 
proponents  of  centralization,  ritualists  and  moralists, 
Ezra  and  Sanballat.  The  Torah  when  viewed  as  a 
whole  transmits  to  the  last  generation  the  piety  of  the 
patriarchs  and  even  of  the  righteous  that  preceded 
them;  whatsoever  of  faith  and  fear  of  God  there  was 


120          THE  SCRIPTURES  IN  THE  MAKING 

in  the  world  before  the  Mosaic  epoch  is  treasured  up 
for  a  memorial  and  for  imitation.  It  sums  up  all  the 
movements  in  the  religious  life  of  the  nation, 
imposing  a  lasting  peace  upon  them  all.  No 
extreme  views  are  permitted  to  prevail;  with  the 
iconoclasm  of  the  one-sided  moralist  it  fuses  the  con- 
servatism of  those  teachers  and  leaders  who  stood  out 
for  a  piety  that  with  all  its  inwardness  takes  shape 
in  tangible  forms  and  institutions.  The  community  of 
the  children  of  God  must  needs  be  a  visible  one;  and 
so  long  as  such  societies  exist,  they  will  have  a 
priesthood  no  matter  what  the  garb  may  be.  In  the 
Torah  the  sternest  and  gentlest  of  the  prophets  might 
recognize  their  very  best  thought,  expressed  in  a 
diction  which  by  its  very  simplicity  and  charm  by  far 
surpasses  the  measured  lines  of  the  prophets,  just  as 
the  lawgiver  keeps  himself  disengaged  from  the  im- 
mediate situation  and  rising  above  time  focuses  him- 
self upon  eternity.  'And  now,  Israel,  what  doth  the 
Lord  thy  God  require  of  thee,  but  to  fear  the  Lord  thy 
God,  to  walk  in  all  His  ways,  and  to  love  Him,  and  to 
serve  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  heart  and  with  all 
thy  soul ;  to  keep  for  thy  good  the  commandments  of 
the  Lord,  and  His  statutes,  which  I  command  thee 
this  day?'  In  this  sum  all  the  strife  of  contest  is  hushed, 
for  the  highest  has  been  attained,  that  which  for  ever 
made  the  Torah  for  Israel  'life  and  length  of  days'  and 
constitutes  that  unity  of  purpose  which  dominates 
every  part  of  it. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
THE  HOLY  SPIRIT 

-nL    TN      •       j.  T»  The  unity  which  the  Torah 

The  Dominant  Position       ,  .       ,    J  -   .  ,    , 

-  , ,     —      ,  achieved  as  a  finished  product 

of  the  Torah  ,  ,       .     -    ^ H          f 

secured  for  the  first  part  of 

the  Scriptures  also  its  unique  position.  It  stands  in  the 
consciousness  of  the  Jew  as  mirrored  in  the  pronounce- 
ments of  the  rabbis,  quite  apart  from  the  rest.  Fre- 
quently, Prophets  and  Writings  are  subsumed  under  the 
name  Kabbalah,  Tradition,  their  function  consisting 
in  carrying  on  the  eternal  principles  of  the  Torah. 
Poets  and  prophets  were  their  best  interpreters.  The 
Torah  just  as  often  stands  for  the  Scriptures  in  their 
entirety.  It  is  not  always  easy  to  tell  whether  Torah 
is  used  in  the  wider  or  narrower  sense.  It  really  mat- 
ters little,  as  a  denial  of  the  authority  of  the  Torah 
involves  a  repudiation  of  the  rest. 

This  authority  rests,  accord- 
'Torah  from  Heaven' .  .,      ,T.  ,  ,, 

mg  to  the    Mishna,    upon  the 

dogma  of  its  divine  origin.  'He  who  holds  that  there 
is  no  Torah  from  Heaven  forfeits  his  share  in  the 
world  to  come'.  It  is  pointedly  directed  against 
certain  tendencies  of  the  period,  which  taught  the 
provisional  character  of  the  Mosaic  dispensation  and 
its  ultimate  abrogation.  The  anathema  of  the  Mish- 
na was  then  extended  to  such  as  maintained  that  'all 


122  THE  SCRIPTURES  IN  THE  MAKING 

of  the  Torah  is  from  Heaven  except  this  or  that  verse 
which  was  not  spoken  by  the  Holy  One,  blessed  be  He, 
but  Moses  added  it  of  his  own  accord.'  Here  we  have 

_,     _  the  doctrine    of  Verbal  inspira- 

The  Doctrine  of        A.     ,  ,.  . .  .   ,, 

IT  t  i  T  •  jj  tion  ,  according  to  which  Moses 
Verbal  Inspiration  ,  ,  , 

acted  merely  as  a  copyist  writing 

at  dictation' ;  it  implies  a  levelling  of  the  lighter  and 
the  heavier  matters;  according  to  Maimonides,  the 
genealogy  of  the  sons  of  Ham  (Genesis  10.6)  or  the 
name  of  the  concubine  of  Eliphaz  (36.12)  stands  on  a 
footing  of  equality  with  the  First  Commandment 
(Exodus  20.2)  and  the  Shema'  (Deuteronomy  6.4). 
At  the  same  time  it  has  a  countervailing  effect :  it  draws 
the  attention  away  from  the  human  agent  to  the 
directive  source  which  is  in  God.  The  Torah  of  Moses 
it  is,  but  the  appellation  serves  as  a  mark  of  iden- 
tification ;  we  know  the  books  which  constitute  it. 
What  matters  far  more  is  that  it  is  the  Torah  of  God. 

_  Eminent  as  the  position  of  the 

Torah  linked  to     „,,..,,  . 

,,     ._      .  Torah  is,  it  has  by  no  means  lost 

the  Prophets  '     ,    ,,      *  ,  .. 

contact  with  that  category  of  the 

nation's  mental  activity  which  from  the  very  begin- 
ning made  it  the  combination  of  priestly  teaching  and 
prophetic  persuasiveness.  The  revelation  on  mount 
Sinai  is  glorified ;  for  there  a  whole  people,  and  be  it 
only  for  a  moment  of  supreme  exaltation,  saw  God. 
Moses  is  elevated  far  above  the  other  prophets.  The 
Torah  itself  leads  the  way.  'My  servant  Moses  is  not 
so:  with  him  do  I  speak  mouth  to  mouth  (as  a  man 


THE  HOLY  SPIRIT 123 

speaketh  to  his  friend,  Exodus  33.11),  not  in  dark 
speeches  (by  means  of  visions,  or  'mashals'),  nor  by 
dreams'  (Numbers  12.6-8).  Yet  the  distinction  is  only 
one  of  degree.  He  was  simply  the  first  among  his  peers 
(Deuteronomy  18.15).  'By  a  prophet  the  Lord  brought 
Israel  up  out  of  Egypt,  and  by  a  prophet  was  he  kept' 
(Hosea  12.14).  The  prophets  knew  themselves  as 
admitted  to  the  divine  council  (Jeremiah  23.18) ;  Moses 
was  at  home  there,  'trusted  in  all  of  God's  house'. 
The  meekest  of  all  men  was  not  jealous  of  his  brother- 
prophets.  'Would  that  all  the  Lord's  people  were 
prophets!'  Thus  in  a  manner  Torah  and  Prophets 
are  linked  together  and  the  three  divisions  are  really 
reduced  to  two.  In  the  prayer  of  Ezra  (9.11,  12), 
a  composite  citation  from  Leviticus  and  Deuteronomy 
with  just  an  element  from  Ezekiel  is  introduced  as  that 
which  God  commanded  by  the  hand  of  His  servants 
the  prophets. 

What    distinguishes    all    of    the 
The  Holy  Spirit          ,         ...     .  *  .       e.. 

prophets  alike  is  the  possession  of  the 

Spirit,  of  the  Holy  Spirit  (Isaiah  63.11 ;  Nehemiah  9. 
30).  Or  rather  it  is  the  Spirit  that  possesses  them, 
that  uses  their  body  as  a  vesture  which  it  puts  on. 
The  manner  in  which  the  Spirit  operates  is  ultimately 
a  mystery,  the  act  of  Revelation  a  miracle,  which 
neither  place  nor  conditions  of  time  can  explain,  just 
as  the  intellectual  and  temperamental  endowment, 
which  fits  the  prophet  for  his  vocation,  remains  a 
free  gift  of  Heaven.  There  were  evil  spirits 


124  THE  SCRIPTURES  IN  THE  MAKING 

abroad  likewise,  just  as  we  speak  of  evil  influences; 
impure  spirits  (Hosea  5.4)  as  well  as  pure.  'Holy'  was 
the  spirit,  because  it  emanated  from  God.  God  alone 
is  Holy;  all  else  is  holy  in  a  derivative  sense  because 
of  its  association  with  God.  The  Temple  is  God's 
'holy  house',  the  hill  upon  which  the  Temple  was 
situated  His  'holy  mount',  Jerusalem  His  'holy  city', 
Palestine  the  'holy  land',  and  Israel  God's  'holy 
people'.  The  'holy  Spirit*  is  simply  the  'Spirit  of  God', 
and  the  words  which  become  articulate  on  the  proph- 
et's lip  when  the  Spirit  takes  hold  on  him  are  God's 
'holy  words'  (Jeremiah  23.9). 

Here  we  have  the  origin  of  the  ap- 
Holy  Scriptures       „    .        <u  ,      _    .  ;        ,     „  f 
pellation     Holy    Scriptures .    Holy 

Scripture  was  at  first  the  single  message  written  down ; 
then  a  book  containing  a  number  of  these  messages; 
then  any  historical  book  about  the  acts  and  utterances 
of  these  spokesmen  of  God ;  then  the  books  of  Wisdom 
and  of  lyric  poetry,  not  merely  because  they  dealt,  or, 
by  interpretation,  were  connected  with  themes  and 
things  divine,  but  for  the  reason  that  these  likewise 
were  manifestations  of  the  Spirit.  Thus  the  entire 
collection  assumed  a  unity  and  became  Holy  Script- 
ures, that  is,  the  depository  of  the  sum  of  Divine 
Revelation. 

Thus  it  is  the  Spirit  as  organ  of  Revelation  that 
dominates  the  collection  and  imparts  to  it  its  name. 

_.     _  ,    The  dower  of  the  Spirit  is  the  out- 

The  Dower  of  ..      ,  •    <.,          •       c  T 

*t-    o  •  'A  standing  feature  in  the  genius  of  Isra- 

tne  Spirit  1^-1  •       • 

el.    There  were  inspired  men  among 


THE  HOLY  SPIRIT 125 

other  nations;  Baal  had  his  prophets  as  well  as  the 
Lord.  What  is  common  to  them  all  is  but  the  manner 
and  the  belief  that  they  were  the  spokesmen  of  the 
Deity.  But  that  which  makes  the  prophets  and  the 
singers  of  Israel  incomparable  lies  in  the  uniqueness 
of  the  things  they  said  rather  than  in  the  mode  in 
which  they  said  it.  They  were  indeed  the  instrument 
in  the  hand  of  God  to  cause  to  be  ingrained  in  the 
people  out  of  which  they  sprung  and  in  which  their 
whole  being  was  rooted,  the  consciousness  that  the 
earth  must  be  hallowed  by  bringing  down  Heaven  to 
rest  upon  it.  Even  the  primeval  chaos  was  breathed 
upon  by  the  spirit  of  God ;  the  same  Spirit  was  infused 
into  man,  the  crown  of  creation,  and  no  part  of  human 
kind  was  left  without  a  touch  of  the  Divine.  But  the 
fulness  of  the  outpouring  of  the  Spirit  was  given  to 
Israel;  from  the  first  it  guided  patriarchs  and  elders, 
lawgivers  and  seers,  wise  teachers  and  sweet  singers, 
and  from  step  to  step  it  directed  scribes  and  compilers, 
even  as  at  the  last  it  operated  through  the  collector  as  he 
elected  the  one  writing  and  rejected  the  other.  It  was 

_.  .  in  conformity  with  the  divine  plan 

The  Divine  Plan     .    .  _..  ,    \     , ,  M       ,K 

that  Elijah  should  prevail  and  not 

Ahab,  Josiah  and  not  Manasseh,  Jeremiah  and  not 
Hananiah,  Ezra  and  not  Sanballat,  the  separatists  and 
not  the  friends  of  'fusion',  the  Pietists  and  not  the 
worldly,  the  Pharisees  and  not  the  Sadducees;  yet  in 
a  manner  that  nothing  valuable  was  lost,  that  in  the 
victorious  movements  the  echoes  of  the  vanquished 


126  THE  SCRIPTURES  IN  THE  MAKING 

still  reverberate,  that  the  Word  of  God  is  one  in  its 
very  compositeness,  that  the  broad  stream  of  living 
waters  carries  down  with  it  the  many  confluents. 

_,  ,  ,.          They  asked  Wisdom :  What  shall 

The  Author  of  the  .        ,  J        .. 

„    .  be    done    with    the    sinner?      It 

answered:  Evil  pursueth  sinners 
(Proverbs  13.12).  Equally  uncompromising  was  the 
reply  of  stern  prophecy:  The  soul  that  sinneth  shall 
die  (Ezekiel  18.20).  The  Torah  answered:  Let  him 
offer  a  guilt-offering,  and  he  will  be  forgiven.  They 
asked  the  Holy  One,  blessed  be  He,  and  He  said :  Let 
him  repent,  and  he  will  be  forgiven'.  The  verdict  of 
God  who  is  the  Author  of  them  all  is  reiterated  in  the 
pages  of  Torah,  Prophets,  and  Writings  alike.  It  is 
this  hopeful  message  of  restoration  to  divine  mercy 
for  the  individual  and  the  nation  that  has  stamped  this 
collection  with  a  character  all  its  own  and  witnesses  to 
the  Spirit  which  emanating  from  the  Holy  God  dwelt  in 
Israel  from  Moses  to  Ezra  and  from  Ezra  to  Judah  the 
Maccabee,  through  that  long  and  classic  period  when  the 
volumes  making  up  Holy  Writ  were  written,  revised, 
and  assembled.  There  are  many  covers  to  books;  but 
the  covers  of  the  collection  of  writings  constituting 
the  Hebrew  Scriptures  are  the  walls  of  the  Synagogue, 
within  which  these  products  of  by-gone  days  are  en- 
shrined as  a  living  testimony  to  that  which  is  Israel's 
glory,  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 


INDEX 


Abijah,  27 

Abraham,  author  of  Psalm  89,  20 

Adam,  13;  author  of  Psalm  139,  20 

Ahaz  seals  up  the  Torah,  33 

Alexander  the  Great,  22 

Amaziah,  king,  and  the  Torah,  33 

Amon  commits  the  Torah  to  the 
flames,  33 

Amos,  book  of,  12 

Anachronisms  in  the  Torah  pointed 
out  by  Ibn  Ezra,  37 

Antiochus  Epiphanes  deposes  Onias, 
22 

Apocrypha  and  Apocryphal,  meaning  of 
terms,  86;  fate  of  excluded  writings, 
89;  list  of  Apocrypha,  92;  character 
of,  94 

Asaph,  psalms  by,  20 

Astruc,  Jean,  suggests  a  new  theory  con- 
cerning the  composition  of  Genesis, 
38 

Autonomy,  internal,  obtained  by  Ezra, 
31 

Balaam,  section  concerning,  written  by 

Moses,  21 

Baruch,  Jeremiah's  amanuensis,  28 
Belshazzar,  13 
Bentley,  118 
Bible,   English  word  for,  derived  from 

the  Greek  biblia,  18 
'Book  of  the  Covenant',  34;  its  place 

in  the  pentateuchal  'documents',  40; 

supposedly  a  compilation  of  private 

initiative,  41 
'Books,  the',  in  Daniel,  18 

Canon  and  canonical,    the   terms,   86; 


rabbinic  expressions  for,  83-85;  Gen- 
izah,  86 ;  attempts  at  excluding  canon- 
ical books,  87;  closing  of  the  Can- 
on the  work  of  Pharisaism  Triumph- 
ant, 90;  C.  of  the  Catholic  Church,  92 

Catholic  scholars  and  the  Pentateuch, 
48 

Centralization  of  sacrificial  worship  and 
Josiah,  32;  conceived  as  a  new  de- 
mand at  that  time,  41 

Chiquitilla,  Moses  Ibn,  on  the  Second 
Isaiah  and  exilic  psalms,  36 

Chronicles,  I  and  II,  counted  as  one 
book,  13,14;  their  place  in  the  Church 
Bible,  14;  written  by  Ezra,  20;  sources, 
27 ;  the  Chronicler's  Torah,  28 ;  Chron- 
ides-Ezra-Nehemiah  originally  a 
unit,  28;  the  method  and  point  of 
view  of  the  compiler,  44;  time  of,  44 

Codes  co-existing,  107 

Collection  of  the  Scriptures  completed, 
according  to  Talmud,  in  the  time  of 
Ezra,  22;  or  Nehemiah,  26 

Critical  theory,  opponents  of,  48;  mod- 
erate view,  48;  present-day  status, 
49;  higher  and  lower  criticism, 
117—118 

Cyrus,  restoration  under,  13 

Daniel,  book  of,  13,  14;  its  place  in  the 
Church  Bible,  14;  cites  Jeremiah,  18; 
Daniel's  "Bible",  18;  'written1  by  the 
Men  of  the  Great  Synagogue,  20; 
characterization  and  date,  78;  a 
wisdom  book,  80;  Daniel,  one  of  the 
Men  of  the  Great  Synagogue,  21; 
Daniel's  Torah,  28 

David,  founder  of  the  monarchy,  12; 


128 


INDEX 


author  of  the   Book  of  Psalms,   26; 

enjoins  his  son  to  keep  the  Torah,  32; 

Davidic  Psalter  in  the  Church.  25 
Deuteronomist,  the,  43 
Deuteronomy,  1 1 ;  one  of  its  provisions 

found  impracticable  by  Josiah,  32; 

a  verse  from  it  cited  in  II  Kings,  33; 

Code  of,  40;  identified  with  the  Book 

found  by  Josiah,  41 ;  D.  and  Exodus, 

103 

Dictation,  Moses  writes  at,  22 
Differences  in  the  Torah  overempha- 
sized, 116 
'Documents',  the  constituent,  of  the 

Pentateuch,  39;  their  dating,  40—43 

Ecclesiastes.  book  of,  13,  14 

Esther,  book  of,  13 ,  14;  its  place  in  the 
Church  Bible,  15;  'written'  by  the 
Men  of  the  Great  Synagogue,  20 

Exodus,  11,  may  have  been  part  of 
Josiah's  Torah,  105,  106 

Ezekiel,  book  of,  12,  14;  'written'  by 
the  Men  of  the  Great  Synagogue,  20 

Ezra  'wrote'  Ezra-Nehemiah  and  Chron- 
icles, 20;  his  time  marks,  for  the 
Talmud, the  completion  of  the  Scrip- 
tures, 22;  his  Torah,  29;  according 
to  Spinoza,  E.  compiled  the  Penta- 
teuch, 37,  38;  Wellhausen's  view, 
42 

Ezra-Nehemiah  counted  as  one  book, 
13,  14;  its  place  in  the  Church  Bible, 
75 

Fast  of  Ab,  Lamentations  read  on,  13 
'Freethinkers'  and  the  Mosaic  author- 
ship of  the  Pentateuch,  38 

Gad,  27 

Geiger  for  the  priority  of  Leviticus  to 

Deuteronomy,   50 
Genesis.  11 


Genizah,  86 

Graetz's  unorthodox  opinion  on  time 

of  Koheleth  and  Psalms,  50;  his  viewi 

on  the  Pentateuch,  51 

Habakkuk.  book  of,  12 

Haggai,  book  of,  12;  Haggai,  one  of  the 

men  of  the  Great  Synagogue,  21 
Heman,  psalm  by,  20 
Hexateuch,  43 
Hezekiah  and  his  company,   20;  the 

Torah  lost  after  the  reign  of,  33 
'High  places'  destroyed  by  Josiah,  32 
Historical  books,  composition  of,  43 
Homesh,  or  Hummash,  16 
Hosea,  book  of,  12 

Ibn  Ezra,  Abraham,  on  the  authorship 
of  the  Torah.  37 

Iddo,  27 

Inspiration,  verbal,  122 

Interpolations,  46 

Isaiah,  book  of,  12,  14;  'written',  ac- 
cording to  Talmud,  by  Hezekiah  and 
his  company,  20 

Jaddua,  high  priest  in  the  times  of 
Alexander  the  Great,  22,  44 

Jeduthun,  psalms  by,  20 

Jehoiachin,  released  from  prison,  12 

Jehu  (the  prophet),  27 

Jeremiah,  book  of,  12,  14;  what  he 
wrote,  according  to  Talmud,  20;  how 
his  addresses  were  committed  to  writ- 
ing, 28;  'itinerant  preacher'  of  the 
newly  found  Torah,  31 

Jerusalem,  fall  of,  12 

Job,  book  of,  13,  14;  authorship  as- 
cribed to  Moses,  23;  placed  in  Syriac 
Bible  after  Deuteronomy,  23;  dif- 
ficulty of  dating  it,  70;  the  problem 
universal,  71 

Joel,  book  of.  12 


INDEX 


129 


Jonah,  book  of,  12 

Josephus,  on  the  Canon  of  Scriptures, 
24 

Joshua,  book  of,  begins  the  second  di- 
vision, 11,  12;  authorship  of,  21 

Joshua,  the  conquest  under,  12 

Josiah,  his  book  of  the  Torah,  31;  the 
restoration  of  religious  affairs  of  the 
kingdom  by,  31 

Judah,  Kingdom  of,  12 

Judah  the  Maccabee  collects  sacred 
books,  25 

Judges,  book  of,  12;  written  by  Samuel, 
according  to  Talmud,  21 

Judges,  the  age  of  the,  12 

Kabbalah,  as  a  rabbinic  name  for  Proph- 
ets and  Writings,  121 

Kalisch  moving  in  the  line  of  the  'ad- 
vanced' position  ahead  of  Wellhausen, 
50 

Ketubim,  name  of  the  third  part  of  the 
Scriptures,  11;  contents  of,  13;  order 
of,  13;  place  in  the  Church  Bible, 
15 

Kingdom,  the  divided,  12 

Kings,  12;  I  and  II  counted  as  one 
book,  12;  'written'  by  Jeremiah,  ac- 
cording to  Talmud,  20 

•Koheleth.'written',  according  toTalmud, 
by  Hezekiah  and  his  company,  20; 
scant  historical  allusions  in,  76;  his 
own  interpolator,  26;  his  language, 
77 

Korah,  psalms  by  the  three  sons  of,  20 

Krochmal  concedes  Maccabean  psalms, 
51 

Lamentations,  book  of,  13,  14;  its  place 
in  the  Church  Bible,  14;  'written'  by 
Jeremiah,  according  to  Talmud,  20; 
combined  with  Jeremiah  in  Josephus, 
24 


Levites  assisting  Ezra  at  the  reading  of 

the  Torah,  29 
Leviticus,  11 
Literary  ownership,  46 
Luzzatto  strictly  orthodox,  50 

Maccabean  period  and  the  closing  of 
the  prophetic  Canon,  45 

Maccabean  uprising,  22,  25 

Maimonides  on  uniting  the  Scriptures 
in  a  codex,  17 

Malachi,  book  of,  12;  one  of  the  Men 
of  the  Great  Synagogue,  21 

'Mashal1,  62 

Megillot;  see  Scrolls. 

Melchizedek,  author  of  Psalm  HO,  20 

Micah,  book  of,  12;  a  verse  from,  cited 
in  Jer..  27 

Monarchy,  founding  of  the,  12 

Mordecai,  one  of  the  Men  of  the  Great 
Synagogue,  21 

Moses,  life  of,  narrated  in  the  Penta- 
teuch, 1 1 ;  books  ascribed,  by  Talmud, 
to,  20;  author  of  Psalm  90.  20 

Moses,  son  of  Nahman.on  Ibn  Ezra's 
strictures  on  the  Mosaic  authorship 
of  the  Torah,  37 

Nahum,  book  of,  12 

Nathan,  27 

Nebiim,  name  of  the  second  part  of  th« 
Scriptures,  11 

Nebuchadnezzar,  13 

Nehemiah,  founder  of  a  library,  25 ;  one 
of  the  Men  of  the  Great  Synagogue, 
26;  signer  of  a  document  obligating 
the  people  to  the  Torah,  29 

Number  of  sacred  books  in  Josephus. 
24 

Numbers,  11 

Obadiah,  book  of,  12 

Onias,  son  of  Simon  II,  deposed,  22 


130 


INDEX 


Order  of  the  books.  13;  among  Easter- 
ners, 13;  among  Westerners,  14; 
Talmudic  order,  14 

Papal  commission  on  the  Pentateuch, 
98 

Parts,  the  three,  of  the  Scriptures,  11; 
division  ancient  and  universal,  14; 
in  the  Church,  14;  in  the  Greek 
translations,  15;  in  the  additional 
prayer  on  New  Year's  day.15;  implied 
by  the  Greek  translation  of  Sirach, 
15;  whether  they  may  be  joined  to- 
gether, 16;  like  three  shelves,  81 

Passover,  Song  of  Songs  read  on,  13 

Pentateuch;  see  Torah 

Persian  kings,  rescripts  of,  25 

Plurality  of  sanctuaries,  42 

Poetic  accentuation,  13 

Priests  and  the  Torah,  55 — 57;  conflict 
with  prophets,  58;  with  priests,  60; 
meet  the  challenge  of  the  wise  men, 
64 

Priests'  code,  40;  character  and  date  of 
compilation,  42;  contains  the  mo- 
ralities, 111 

Prophet-historians,  unbroken  succession 
of,  27 

Prophets,  their  function,  57;  character- 
ization of,  58;  and  priests,  58;  the 
prophetic  Torah,  59;  conflicts  with 
prophets,  59;  'false'  prophets,  60; 
meet  the  challenge  of  wisdom,  65 

Prophets;  see  Nebiim.  Prophets,  former, 
12;  order,  13;  latter,  12;  order,  13; 
Minor,  12;  place  in  the  Church  Bible, 
15;  counted  as  one  book  already  in 
the  time  of  Sirach,  18;  criticism  on 
the  prophetic  books,  45;  radical  views 
on,  45 

Proverbs,  book  of,  13,14;  'written',  ac- 
cording to  Talmud,  by  Hezekiah  and 
his  company,  20;  title  to  chapters  25 


and  following,  21 

Psalms,  books  of,  first  of  the  Ketubira, 
11,  13,  14;  Maccabean  psalms,  46 

Psalter,  groups  of,  72;  connection  with 
the  Temple  service,  73;  difficulty  of 
dating  the  Psalms,  74;  psalms  out- 
side the  Psalter,  75;  dominated  by 
Torah  and  Prophets,  75;  books  con- 
nected with  the  Psalter  in  the  third 
division,  80 

Pseudepigrapha,  95 ;  list  of,  92 — 94 

Purim,  Esther  read  on,  13 

Rashi  on  hiding  the  Torah,  33 

Ratification  of  the  Torah,  document 
of,  30 

Reading  of  the  Torah  by  Ezra,  29 

Restoration  under  Cyrus,  13 

Ruth,  book  of,  12;  place  of.  13,14;  its 
place  in  the  Church  Bible,  14;  writ- 
ten by  Samuel,  according  to  Talmud, 
21;  combined  with  Judges,  in  Jose- 
phus,  24 

Saadya  on  the  Torah  written  on  stone 
by  Joshua,  34 

Samaria,  destruction  of,  12 

Samuel,  12;  I  and  II  counted  as  one 
book,  12;  Samuel  wrote  it  according 
to  Talmud,  21;  source  for  Chron.,  27 

Saul,  founder  of  the  monarchy,  12 

Schechter  on  the  'historical  school'  and 
the  Scriptures,  51 

'Scribe',  meaning  of,  30 

Scriptures,  collection  of,  anciently  in 
thought  only,  16;  process  of  Scripture 
making,  18;  the  traditional  view,  21 
ff.;  its  salient  point,  22;  Scriptural 
data,  23 ;  the  Holy  Scriptures  defined, 
24,  88,  124;  Author  of,  126;  compass 
of,  91 

Scrolls,  the  five,  13 

Shemaiah.  27 


INDEX 


131 


Simon  the  Just,  among  the  last  of  the 
Men  of  the  Great  Synagogue,  22 

Sirach,  book  of,  15;  counts  the  Minor 
Prophets  as  one  book,  18;  considers 
book  of  Isaiah  the  work  of  one  man, 
36 

Solomon,  12 

Solomonic  writings,  14,  IS 

Song,  offshoot  of  the  'mashal',  65;  bal- 
lads, 67;  the  'song  of  loves',  68; 
psalmody,  68;  the  'dirge',  69 

Song  of  Songs,  place  of,  13,  14;  'writ- 
ten', according  to  Talmud,  by  Hez- 
ekiah  and  his  company,  20 

Spinoza  on  the  authorship  of  the  Torah, 
39;  called  the  father  of  modern  bibli- 
cal criticism,  38 

Spirit,  the  Holy,  withdrawn  from  Israel 
after  the  death  of  Haggai,  Zechariah, 
and  Malachi,  23;  in  the  possession  of 
the  prophets,  123;  the  dower  of  the 
Spirit,  124 

Synagogue,  Men  of  the  Great,  and 
their  'writings',  20;  successive 
leaders  in  the  Persian  period,  22; 
continuing  into  the  Greek  period,  22 

Tabernacles,  festival  of,  when  Ecclesi- 
astes  is  read,  13;  kept  by  Ezra,  30 

Ten  Words,  the,  written  by  God  Him- 
self, 34 

Third  division,  date  of  its  closing,  47; 
made  up  of  Wisdom  books,  79 

Torah,  name  of  the  first  part  of  the 
Scriptures,  11;  its  several  books,  11; 
a  unit  forming  a  single  scroll,  16; 
single  volumes,  16;  possesses  a  higher 
degree  of  holiness  than  the  rest  of  the 
Scriptures,  17;  physically  kept 
apart,  18;  authorship  of  the 
last  eight  verses  of,  21;  references  to 


a  written  'Torah'  in  the  other  parti 
of  the  Scriptures,  28 ;  adapting  to  new 
conditions,  30,  32;  The  Torah 
of  Josiah,  31—33;  99,  102—103; 
references  to  the  T.  in  Joshua,  33; 
its  testimony  concerning  itself,  34; 
place  of  the  Torah  according  to  crit- 
icism, 47;  Ezra's  part  in  the  Torah, 
98;  the  Samaritans  and  the  T.,  99; 
Hosea's  Torah,  108;  character  of  the 
codes,  110;  no  hostility  to  ritual.  111; 
the  Torah  of  Moses,  113;  what  it  was 
like,  114;  its  higher  unity,  119;  its 
dominant  position,  121;  'Torah  from 
heaven',  121;  T.  linked  to  the  Proph- 
ets, 122 

Torah,  ritual,  55;  judicial,  56;  in  mat- 
ters of  conscience,  56;  comprehensive 
in  its  meaning,  57 
Tradition  and  Criticism,  52 
Tripartition  ancient,  54 
Triple  source  of  Revelation,  54 
Twelve,  the,  'written'  by  the  Men  of 
the  Great  Synagogue,  20 

Weeks,  Festival  of,  Ruth  read  on,  13 
Wellhausen,  on  the  Pentateuch,  40 
Wisdom,  secular,  61 ;  precursor  of  science, 
62;  international  and  utilitarian,  63; 
competes    with    prophecy,    63;    the 
higher  Wisdom,  64;  competes  with  the 
priests'    Torah,    64;    influenced    by 
priests    and    prophets,    side-tracks 
rationalism,  65 

'Write',  meaning  of,  in  Talmud,  20 
'Writings';  see  Ketubim 

Zechariah,  book  of,  12;  one  of  the  Men 

of  the  Great  Synagogue,  21 
Zephaniah,  book  of,  12 
Zunz,  critical  notions  of,  50 


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